


Break

by DenseHumboldt



Series: Break [1]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood, Blood Bond, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Escape, F/M, Post-Captain Marvel (2019), Problem ships, Rescue, Rescue Missions, Slow Build, Spoilers, Team Up, Yonvers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-01-05 17:28:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 68,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18370709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DenseHumboldt/pseuds/DenseHumboldt
Summary: Post-Movie Carol continues her journey to help the Skrulls. She runs into Yon-Rogg again where she least expected to find him and he becomes her unwilling partner in a mission to help his enemies.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The blatant making up continues!  
> I still know nothing about this universe. Hopefully that doesn't stop you enjoying a buddy cop/jail break with Yon-Rogg and Carol.
> 
> If you have read my two other fics Chalice and Admiration this isn't a sequel to them even though it is post movie. Although there will be weird blood stuff because I am the Conductor of this train and we stop at ALL the stations.
> 
> As always I love talking to you guys so let me know your thoughts below <3

It could have gone better.

 

Carol wasn't going to completely write off this place because of one small incident. After all, she didn't accept this mission because she thought it would be easy. She wanted to find a place where the Skrulls could live peacefully. She also wanted somewhere the Kree could not easily overwhelm if they discovered the Skrulls were there. That required a fine balance between militaristic ambition and technological irrelevance. They could not have something the Kree might want, but they also had to pose a threat should the Kree come. Planets like this were necessarily vigilant. In hindsight entering through the atmosphere and leaving her ship hovering above was too bold an entrance.

 

She could see that now that she was being walked by a small squadron of guards into the bowels of a massive prison. She was going peacefully. Once her absense was noted her allies would send another ship to get her back. Until then being calm and cool headed would be her best plan.

 

One guard was carrying a squirming black sack that she had to admit was making her nervous. Squirming could be very misleading. 

 

They had passed mostly empty cells. That was a good sign. So was the design of the prison. Simple metal bars. Mechanical locks. You could see into every cell. This was a place with nothing to hide. Carol was confident she could negotiate with them. This was all one big misunderstanding.

 

They reached their destination. One guard held open the door while the others crowded her into the cell. The light was low this deep into the prison. Carol could barely see, but she thought she heard a rustling noise. She walked in to cell and turned back to face the guards. Wordlessly they threw the sack in after her and slammed the door.

 

Carol stepped closer in the semi-darkness to observe the sack which had landed with an unceremonious thud. Something was clearly seeking its way out of the bag. Finally, small little hands found the edge of the sack and began to work on freeing themselves.

 

Carol crouched to watch, equally prepared to kick it or help it depending on what proved to be inside. A small furry head popped out, followed by an equally shapeless furry body. Having removed itself from the sack the creature did a small turn and looked at Carol with wide, pupiless, staring eyes. She had half memories of a creature that looked like this on Earth. Strange they had thrown it in here with her. She was vaguely worried it was meant to be her dinner. The creature chittered then scampered away from her.

 

"Vers." 

 

A voice broke through the darkness. It stabbed at Carol's heart and she felt the first pang of uneasiness since she had been taken captive. She stood slowly and did not want to turn to look at the owner of that voice. 

 

"What? You can't even look at me?" He taunted her. She clenched her fists. The control she thought she had gained melting and slipping from her. She felt the energy spark as she turned.

 

"Yon-Rogg" she said igniting her hands.

 

There was an empty, wailing sound and the power was extinguished. Carol looked at her hands in shock and Yon-Rogg laughed his low mocking laugh. She hated him. She looked about her for the source of the sound. The creature chittered.

 

Experimentally she lit one finger. The sound returned pulling the glowing energy away from her skin in tiny tendrils. She watched it float across the cell and disappear into the gullet of the little animal clinging to the bars.

 

Carol blinked. She felt her panic gain a little hold around her stomach. She had not planned on using her powers, but to find herself suddenly without them and so close to her treacherous former mentor was not in her plan.

 

"That little rat is what keeps this planet in a technological dark ages. It eats pure energy."

 

She had never realized before how he was always over explaining things. Among the myriad of betrayals this one had slipped away from her, but being near him again it was the first thing to eat at her.

 

"You don't say" she turned back to him voice dripping with ice.

 

Yon-Rogg stepped closer to the bars, into a small shaft of light. To her surprise, he looked scruffy and unkempt. He was in his armour, but his closely cropped hair had begun to have a bit of a curl and he had beard covering his chin and neck.

 

She forced herself to look away from him. She didn't have to talk to him, did not have to poke at the deep cavity of pain he had left in her gut. The wound she had let scab over rather than healing it.

 

Yon-Rogg watched her with hungry eyes. She stalked away from him and threw herself down onto her thin cot. He had seen her pout like this before, he knew her movements as thoroughly as he knew Kree battleforms. She may have wanted to forget him after their last meeting on C 53, but he knew she could never be free from him. In the same way, for the same reason, he could never be free from her. She carried his blood in her veins. To him she was a sacred vessel of his own power. She may believe that it was Mar-Vell who had given her her gifts. In truth, Mar-Vell had led to her sacrifice. She was no more than the Terran's death, he had rebuilt her from the ashes.

 

Now they were meeting as equals. Both captured on a backwater planet, both without their weapons, both free from the surveillance of their governing AI. It sent a small chill down Yon-Rogg's spine to know this was the first time he was truly alone with her.

 

He was being blessedly silent, Carol thought, especially given her embarrassing position. She was being rather effectively held by a creature the size of a ground hog. The creature that was watching her with hungry staring eyes. Some small voice in the back of her head wondered if it would bite her.

 

Lying on her side sulking into the thin mattress she decided to test it. She lit her finger again. The thing didn't move, but the empty sucking sound began immediately, pulling the energy from her finger. She watched it float like a jellyfish all the way across her cell. The rat had range.

 

She tried hurling a bolt, but as quick as her reflexes were the small fur bag gobbled it up.

 

Yon-Rogg watched her with a familiar feeling of bemusement and irritation. He resented how charming he found her, testing the little glow rat like it was her new pet. He felt an immediate kinship with the thing. He knew what it was like to be the focus of Vers' attention, to have her test your limits. He also knew what it was like to want to consume her power. The raw insatiable hunger that came from coveting her. Just like that rat he had been starving, ravenous. For her. For her power. Consumed at night with worry about where she was. If she was safe and whole or if his blood was pooled on some alien soil light years away from him. He suddenly hated her and the rat.

 

Carol was in a staring match with a rodent. She could see no discernible change in it. She got off the bed and walked to where it nattered excitedly. She narrowed her eyes at it. Centering herself she focused on its dark endless eyes. Maybe all she had to do was over feed it? She exhaled and began to form a ball of light between her palms, the photon energy licking at her skin, causing her hair to float upwards. Somewhere behind her Yon-Rogg moved close but she ignored him.

 

Its mouth a perfect 'o' the animal pulled and pulled. It swelled bigger and it began to crackle with its own energy, but still it drank in. Carol stopped panting, doubled over with the effort. The creature made a happy clicking noise slumping its descended belly through the bars.

 

"Just kill it, Vers" Yon-Rogg's bored drawl drifted through the cell making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Carol didn't know if it was from disgust or hearing her Kree name. A name she heard only in her dreams, only in his voice.

 

"I am not going to kill it." She gritted out between her teeth. Straightening and pushing her hair off her sweaty forehead.

 

"Then pass it here and I will kill it." Yon-Rogg reached a hand through the bars of her cell making a comforting tsking noise. Beckoning the animal closer to him.

 

"Leave it alone." Carol scooped the fat animal up in her arms and to her surprise it didn't resist her. A long tongue lolled out of its mouth as it yawned contentedly.

 

"Don't you dare name it, Vers." Yon-Rogg growled through the bars. Carol responded by sticking her tongue out at him.

 

"Too late, right Photon?" She cooed as she shifted the fatty bag of energy and oggling eyes in her arms. Yon-Rogg had no power here she reminded herself, feeling the weight and the pulse of the creature. They were both safe from him. She would be patient and keep them both safe.

 

Yon-Rogg slammed an empty palm against the bars but she ignored him and the trickling sensation of fear she felt being so close to him. They could wait this out together.

 

Yon-Rogg hated every blonde hair on her head. He hated the way she curled away from him cooing at the dumb animal. He wanted out of this damn cell. He wanted off this backwater planet. And he wanted to be a galaxy away from Vers. Most of all he hated the relief that had washed through him when he saw her. The brief fleeting moment when he thought they could escape together. Before reality broke back in and he remembered she had walked away from him and the Kree.

 

It had not been pretty returning to Hala disgraced. He had spent days suspended in the SI having his memories, decisions and emotions picked apart. To add insult to injury it had been Vers' face that had looked at him with disappointment. It had been her voice which dressed him down, her hands that had - he didn't want to think about it. The SI had exiled him. To this place. This place that the Kree deemed unworthy of their influence. A clunking mechanical cesspool that allowed itself to be feasted upon by a parasite. They lived in a primitive peace never dreaming of more. He could not have been sent somewhere farther from the glory of the Kree empire.

 

Carol must have fallen asleep. She woke up missing the warmth of her companion. She felt about for it small tendrils of dread weaving through her sluggish muscles. She clicked her tongue.

 

"Photon,' she sang in a low voice "where are you Photon?"

 

She was worried Yon-Rogg had killed it when her guard was down. She was immediately angry with herself for not protecting it better. As a last ditch effort she lit her finger, making comforting noises with her tongue.

 

To her relief Photon popped out from under the bed and took her finger between its two strange little hands. It chattered its teeth happily eating the energy.

 

"You're a real bottomless pit aren't you?" She asked her voice warm with affection. She missed having something to love. She had only just found Maria and Monica again, had only just began to remember how to love them when she had to leave. Even this senseless little creature was enough to soothe some of that emptiness. Emptiness created by no longer belonging in either world. Her stomach growled. There was a real biting emptiness as well. She did not know how long she had been here but surely she had earned her prison rations.

 

She sat up and scanned the cell. It was bare. It didn't look like any guards had come back for them.

 

"The Vers I knew had nightmares."

 

She didn't turn her head to look at him, but he could wait. He knew patience and he knew Vers. He knew how to eat at her.

 

"My name is Carol Danvers." She wrapped herself in the name. Held it against her like shield.

 

"And does Carol Danvers not fear anything?" He sneered and a litany of fears appeared before Carol. 

 

Being forgotten back on Earth or worse still; forgetting. Returning to the empty vessel she had been on Hala. That being so close to him Yon-Rogg would steal it from her again. Drain her through the bars, floating jellyfish of memory pouring out of her. Carol wrapped protective arms around herself, her stomach growled.

 

"From what I have seen you sleep soundly. Like the dead. You don't hear a thing. Even the guards -" He clinked something against the bars and finally her head snapped towards him. He grinned at her, a feral skeletal grin that died in the whites of his cold empty eyes. Eyes which glowed in the small slice of light between their cells. Casting his features in ghoulish relief.

 

He had been livid when he saw they had brought her real solid food. They had been feeding him small packets of nutrient syrup. Like they thought starving him would keep him weak. His teeth longed to chew, his throat begged for something solid to swallow. When she had not stirred when the guards came he immediately formed a wicked scheme. It had not been fast or dignified stealing the plate through the bars of her cell. Obviously that sack of fur was draining her more than she realized. He had been patient though, despite his mouth watering over the dense loaf of prison rations, he waited for her to wake. It only meant something if he ate it in front of her.

 

He had stolen her food. The realization sank through her like ice. Now he was clinking the plate slowly and methodically over the bars of their cells. She shot towards him rage obscuring her fear and caution.

 

"You can't have that, Yon" she snapped falling easily back into her nickname for him. He smiled his skeleton smile again and she growled as she lunged a snatching hand through the bars.

 

She caught him by the neck of his suit, he let her drag him against the bars her eyes trained like lasers on the plate. She was suddenly terrified he would drop it or grind it into the ground. Her stomach burbled acid into her esophagus. She could not stand the thought of starving until her next meal, it filled her with panic.

 

Yon-Rogg broke off a piece and popped it in his mouth. He moaned, the dense flavourless bread was heaven between his teeth. She curled her fist deeper against him and growled. Her loss of calm was even more delicious.

 

"What are you going to do, Vers?" He taunted her. "Are you going to kill me?"

 

Carol's eyes left the plate. They were close, their bodies separated by cold metal bars. She saw him more clearly now; his slim face even slimmer and his armour didn't sit tight against his body any more. They were starving him she realized. She swallowed against the thought. Food suddenly became more precious. She did not loosen her hold. She gripped him tighter as he tipped the plate slightly.

 

"You want it, don't you?" He asked, shimmying the loaf on the plate. "Be nice and I'll share."

 

Her eyes watched the food and he saw her throat catch as he threatened to tip it into the grimy floor of their prison. She released him, holding her hands up in surrender, stepping back from him.

 

He found that was the last thing he wanted. They hadn't just starved his body, he had been alone here; mind and nerves rotting in the solitiude. He felt alive talking to someone again, feeling them against him. She held out her hand as if she expected him to just hand her her share. He shook his head and crooked his finger at her. She looked at him as if she wanted to tell him where to go. He broke of another piece. Savouring it in front of her, she took a tiny unconscious step towards him. Her tongue darting out to wet the small swell of her lip. He felt a different hunger roll inside him. One that had been starved for even longer.

 

"You know how to be nice, don't you Vers?" His gold eyes held a myriad of meanings. Vers gulped against each one. Blanching at the idea. Hunger won out. She stepped against the bars again and curled her fist around the ones framing her face. Her hands shaking, with fear or rage or humiliation. Yon-Rogg savoured every possibility.

 

He broke off another piece and passed it through the bars to her waiting mouth. She opened to him. Taking it from his fingers and no matter how cautious she was he could feel the damp heat of her breath, the softness of her mouth and the small sharpness of her teeth. He fed her two pieces in quick succession. They were even now. She chewed the dense meal with only the barest hint of relief. He wanted more from her.

 

"Still can't look at me?" He said his voice lower, demanding. She looked up, locking eyes even though it made her gut churn. He rewarded her with another piece. Holding it in such away that her tongue caught the tip of his finger. The salt of his skin mixing with the tasteless bread. He mimicked the opening of her mouth, encouraging her as if she was a child who could not feed herself, a tell tale pulse quickening at his jugular. She felt the familiar heat pooling beneath her stomach. He did this to her for six years on Hala, made her feel this heady mix of powerless and powerful. Made her feel like she could not survive without him, but that he would do anything for her. The pool turned to acid. She should step back, but her hands stayed gripped to the bars. Sometimes he would take a piece before giving her another so his thumb would have the slight slickness of their intermingled saliva. The dark thought, as his tongue grazed his fingers, of whether it was the meal or her he was tasting rolled about in her stomach.

 

Yon-Rogg wished that she would bite him as he passed the food between her lips. He wished she would take her teeth to his flesh and lick away blood. Let it mix in with their paltry meal and slide like salt down her throat. If she heard him grunt or saw the hunger in his stare she ignored it. She finally released the bars and walked away as the neared the last piece. Rejecting it before he could steal it from her or worse pity her by giving it to her.

 

"Good girl" he growled at her. Tossing the metal dish away with a hollow din. She turned and sneered at him. Disgust radiated out of her as she gathered the rat against her again and curled up on the mattress.

 

"Don't call me that" she snapped.

 

"Can't call you Vers. I won't call you a dead woman's name. What can I call you?" His voice had the mocking lilt that made her blood boil.

 

"They call me Captain Marvel now" she left a tiny space as if it could have been either word. She couldn't tell if the noise he made was a scoff or choking.

 

"You took the traitor's name?" He asked incredulous. Incredulous and disgusted. Good she wanted to disgust him.

 

"I am honouring her. Her dream for the future and -" she sat up to look at him. So every word would sink beneath his skin so he would know she remembered everything now. "Her sacrifice."

 

He scoffed. He laughed at her and made her want to hurl lightning at him.

 

"What makes you think Mar-Vell is dead?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The great escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a little later than I planned because my basement decided to flood a little bit. You know a pinch of flooding to just really ruin your Sunday.
> 
> As per usual I made everything up so I didn't have to research anything.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented on Chapter 1. I know it is unbelievably selfish of me to desire your praise, but it really does make me write faster. Love love love DH

Carol's mouth went dry. _Liar_ a small voice whispered to her. She couldn't forget Yon-Rogg was a liar. He had lied to her from the moment she gained consciousness on Hala. He was lying now.

That was what was so deceptive about Yon-Rogg he was always explaining, always guiding but the heart was always a lie.

"What did you say?" Her heart was still racing.

"You heard me, Vers." He smiled at her and walked to his cot to lie down. His stomach was burning away solid food for the first time in endless days and it was rebelling. His body always seemed to rebel when Vers was involved.

Carol chased him until she came to bars, she would not let him retreat until he admitted his lies. Now was the time she wanted a confession. She opened her mouth but her words were cut off.

"Star." A gruff voice was behind her. She turned and saw the silver skinned guards staring at her in a V formation.

"Are you talking to me?" She asked.

"The Supreme wishes to speak to the Star that fell." She heard Yon-Rogg snort behind her but she ignored him. Her mind was racing, but she focused on one word that made her feel like ice. The Supreme. It couldn't be. Not here. She straightened her shoulders.

"Of course." She nodded. It was time to bargain. That had been the plan before Yon-Rogg distracted her.

"Grab the rat" the guard muttered behind him as he unlocked the door.

"I've got him." Carol answered hurriedly scooping Photon into her arms. The guards looked minorly repulsed, but she ignored them turning to Yon-Rogg. "I assume they don't mean you."

He sneered at her and hissed as she retreated from the cell. There was a small pit in his stomach he wouldn't admit was fear she wouldn't return.

* * *

 

Koonar was a large, swollen planet. Its gravity was weak compared to Hala and Earth. The people of Koonar looked suitably airy. They had blue skin, but unlike the pure blooded Kree their skin held constellations of silver, small chips of chromium imbedded there.

Carol was ushered into a tall pillared room. It was clear she was meant to walk to the end where a figure sat. A dark outline in a warm white room. She hugged Photon's soft body close to her, feeling a little swell of gratitude for the companionship. Even if it was meant to control her.

As she approached with slow delibrate steps the figure took shape. A tall Koonarian was on a black wood throne. They were wrapped in hundreds of diaphanous layers that swirled around their long thin body like a nebula cloud. Koonarians were humanoid in shape, but looked and moved nothing like humans. As she drew closer this one seemed only to grow taller. They would have towered over the guards.

"Star" they greeted her with an inclined head. Their voice was reedy and sounded far away as if it had to travel a long way up their neck to find their mouth.

"Supreme" she greeted back in a calm measured voice.

"I have never seen someone grasp a Koonarian glow rat so tenderly. Do you not find him a nuisance?"

"I understand hunger" Carol answered. She could not help smiling down at Photon. She could think of far worse nuisances.

The Supreme nodded, considering her answer. When they moved tiny glints of light bounced off their skin, even beneath their robes. They looked even more like a galaxy.

"You are very strange. For a fallen Star."

"Have you had many Stars visit your planet?"

"We have had a few. You are the first in my lifetime. Stars always come when we need them the most."

Carol thought she could have asked many more questions. Especially given her greeting when she first arrived and the hours in prison. Although you couldn't negotiate if you clung to the recent past.

"Is there something your people need?" Maybe she could make a deal for the Skrulls' safety.

"You have already met my greatest fear" the Supreme answered lowering their eyes. Carol thought for one wild moment they meant Photon. "I fear the Kree assimilation has already begun."

Yon-Rogg. They feared Yon-Rogg. Carol released Photon onto the floor so he could scamper away. She didn't know what these next few minutes would bring.

"You have a Kree man held here."

"Yes. Forgive your treatment when you first arrived. We knew why you had come."

They thought she had come because of Yon-Rogg. They couldn't have guessed what she would feel when she found him here.

"What do you think I have come to do for you?"

"Make the Kree Empire forget us."

The Kree never forgot Carol thought. Either they had exiled Yon-Rogg here because they would never come or he was a scout as they said. Somehow Carol felt certain it would be the former. This place could have potential for the Skrulls then.

"How?"

"Kill the Scout"

Carol felt she had been submerged in ice water. They wanted her to kill Yon-Rogg. Yon-Rogg who might know where Mar-Vell was. Yon-Rogg the deceiver.

"I cannot." The Supreme looked taken aback for a moment before leaning in to consider her more thoroughly.

"We had hoped we gave you enough time to weigh his conscience. To find him wanting."

She could think of many sins Yon-Rogg had committed which deserved punishment, but he was not here for the reason they thought he was. Killing him would not have the effect they wanted.

They could leave together though, that small traitorous voice whispered. She could make him lead her to Mar-Vell.

"More time is required?" The Koonarian nodded as if agreeing with Carol. Carol who had said nothing. "Bring him here."

Carol wanted to protest. Wanted to tell them 'no' they could leave him where he was. There was a rustle as hidden guards enacted the Supreme's order.

They would leave together. She realized this was the only option. His words still twisted inside her gut, but it was his face that haunted her. He was wasting away here. Being starved before he would be killed. The picture of him slumped on his knees weak and pale made her sick. She hated him. He had hollowed her out and puppeted her empty shell about. He made her sick, but he would not die this way. And if there was even an ounce of truth in his words his death would not steal more love from her.

"Please wait." Her voice came out as a croak, but it was enough to make the Supreme hold up their hand and pause the movement of the guards. "I do need more time, but not here."

The Supreme nodded and Carol stole a glance at her comm. When she left her ship in orbit she had not considered she would not be returning alone. She could see it now blinking on the otherside of Koonar's orbit. Not wanting to draw attention to herself she relaxed herself into an at ease stance. Her fingers blindingly tapping her comm, calling her rescue pod to her.

"We will return you to the cell. If that will help you make your decision." Carol nodded, her heart racing along with the seconds on the count down timer. They would need to be ready when her ship arrived.

"Thank you."

"Thank you, Star. For coming to Koonar."

Carol bent her head, she did not want the Supreme to read the guilt there. She couldn't afford to forget the risk she brought to the planets she visited. She did not deserve their gratitude.

The guards came for her in V formation again, then closed ranks around her. Obviously their regard for Photon had been raised for he was being allowed to cling mercilessly to the neck and head of one of the guards, free from his sack. She extended a hand to him allowing a brief glance at the timer on her arm. She had three hours.

* * *

 

Yon-Rogg refused to acknowledge the relief he felt when he heard her return. He heard her murmuring to them and the chattering of that damn rat. Yon-Rogg hunched in on himself. His stomach felt hollowed out with hunger. The shared portion of rations only whetting his appetite and awaking the clawing beast in his gut.

"Get up." Her voice was crisp with urgency but Yon-Rogg didn't move. "I said get up."

He heard rather than felt the first hail of pebbles into his cell. For a super powered warrior her accuracy left much to be desired.

Finally she began to hit her mark cascading grimy chips of stone into his mattress, polluting the sheets with grit and annoyance.

"Damn it, Vers" he sat up brushing the rock from him. He would strangle her through bars if he had to.

She was leaning against them, her hands in his cell nonchalantly passing the remaining gravel from one hand to the other. He felt the familiar frisson down his spine as he looked at her. This way leads to danger. He always wanted to remove that smirk from her face, that challenging arch of her eyebrows, the way she could flash her eyes. Fight me, catch me, pin me, teach me.

He strode to her quickly his muscles full of energy for the first time since he had been thrown in this dark hole. He grabbed her wrists before she could step away from the bars. Squeezing them in prayer, hearing the tinkle of falling rocks and the groan as the uncomprimising bars bit into her arms at the soft joints of her inner elbows. It was a place Yon-Rogg knew, no matter how much you trained, that stayed alive to pressure and pain.

"You wanted my attention?" He snarled pulling her arms downward, crashing her into the bars and pushing her palms harder together. He stepped closer to her feeling the heat rise between their bodies and her abused finger tips graze the top of his thighs. She gritted her teeth against the pain and continued to lock eyes with him. If it humilated her to have all her most sensitive parts crushed against the bars or have her hands trapped between their bodies she didn't let on.

She felt rage though, he could see it barely contained behind her eyes. The lightning crackled there and heat began to pour off her in waves. Her skin was super heating too, he felt the burning. His flesh begged for release.

"That's right, Vers. Lose control. Burn me alive." He heard the conviction in his voice as if it came from very far away. Maybe he was already outside his body.

"Death is too good for you, Yon" the words shook out of her. Pain and rage fighting to overcome her control.

The swallowing sound began like a mighty wind and the fire was drained away from her. He watched it pull away from her body in hot tendrils and disappear into the maw of the rat.

He laughed at her then, jerking her hands down farther, pressing his body harder into the bars that separated them. He wondered if he could break her arm this way. He had missed pinning her underneath his sweating body. Holding her until she gave in. Watching her stand again and apply the lesson.

"You let that parasite drain you" he sneered.

"I have met worse parasites."

He growled at her low in his throat. She had strength and speed, but he had always been stronger and faster. She trusted him though. In a perverse way, she knew he would never go too far. Would never make her bleed. It was not his ability to hurt her body that scared her. It was the way that even after all the deception some deep part of her called out to him, wanted to trust him. Wanted him to finish what he started and hone her into the perfect warrior. She would never let him wield her again, never allow him to shape her hate and distrust. She would show him there was a better way.

Yon-Rogg knew he had to release her soon, extricate himself from the heady cloud that engulfed him whenever they were locked in a battle of wills. She thought he was a parasite? Clearly she had made herself forget the way her body drank in his blood, the way she had happily accepted his strength, the way she had clung to him with her lonely confusion her whole life on Hala.

 _And who made her that way?_ A voice whispered in his ear. He muffled it, like he always did when something tried to disrupt his rage with empathy. It was rage and unfettered lust for glory that had kept him alive and strong. It's what would pull him out of this pit now. He didn't need her. He would survive this place on his own. Return to Hala and carve out his honour again from the guts of his detractors.

 _Or_ , the voice whispered as he released her and walked away, _take her back to Hala with you_. He turned to watch her with a hungry gaze. As soon as he had released her she had stepped away from the bars. Although it was unlikely, he hoped deep blue bruises would blossom at her elbows. That she would be forced to think of him again, later when she was alone and naked.

"We are leaving together" her voice broke through his dark imaginings.

"What?" He looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. Carol glanced at the count down timer. The amount of time seemed deceivingly long, but in reality it was slipping away from them quickly.

"You and I are leaving together. My ship is coming."

"What makes you think I will go with you, Star?" He was mocking her.

"Do you have a better plan?"

"Yes"

He watched Vers lean back on her heels opening her arms in a gesture which invited him to elaborate. He stepped close to the bars, the thin slice of light crossing his face.

"First you kill that rat. Then you can melt these bars. We leave before the guards find us. If necessary we kill-"

Vers held up her hand. Yon-Rogg paused to look at her.

"I am hearing a whole lot of 'we' for someone who thinks he is escaping alone." She gestured between them a defiant arch to her eyebrows.

"What is your plan, then? Negotiate?"

"Yes." He scoffed at her. Rolling his eyes he gripped the bars emphatically. His rage barely contained beneath his skin.

"They have kept me here in a black hole; starved and weak. For no other crime than being Kree.You think I will speak words of peace to them?"

Vers stepped closer to him again, brave considering he'd just trapped her against these same bars. She leant in and he felt the heat of her.

"Have ever considered it could have been because you're an asshole?"

She quickly stepped away from the bars dodging his swooping grab.

"Vers" he growled his warning.

"My ship will be here soon. Before that I will stand before the Supreme and argue our-" she gestured between them again "case. Then I will leave this planet. With or without you."

The conversation was over. She walked to her cot and turned away from him and he could do nothing but watch her back and feel the heavy tick of time passing. Just as she said the guards came for them.

* * *

 

Yon-Rogg walked behind her his hands manacled in front of him. Vers, to his frustration, was unbound. She was even without her precious pet. They had parted in the cell; her petting his head and saying comforting words to him before a guard carried him away with a reverence that made Yon-Rogg laugh.

The guards led them to a white stone room, the sound of their footsteps echoing to nothing in the high vaulted ceilings. They walked until they reached a blackened throne, seated on it was the lanky ruler of Koonar. Their blue skin flecked with silver and their small black eyes glistening between folds of skin. They straightened as they saw their group approach. Leaning forward to see Vers better.

Yon-Rogg was brusquely pushed to his knees the chain of the manacle clattering on the floor.

"You have made your choice, Star?"

"I have come to offer a compromise." Vers checked her comm subtley watching as the minutes ticked down. The tall being in the chair sat back affronted.

"What do you mean? Will you not kill the scout? Have you not come to save the Koonari?" A murmur rippled through the guards and Yon-Rogg felt his hackles rise.

"We will leave this planet together and we will not return. You have my word." She glanced back at him silently begging him to acquiesce. To play along. He snarled at her. He would raze this planet to ashes once he had the force of the Kree at his back again. The being tented their fingers.

"No. As the Supreme of Koonar I must insist on a greater assurance. I am the only one who can question you, Star and so I must. How will allowing the scout to leave protect the Koonari?" Carol glanced at her comm once more, her ship's arrival was imminent. She had to just keep talking.

"He will stay by my side. He will not return to his people."

"Why would a Star choose such a companion? Do you hold him in such esteem?" There was a suspicious edge to the Supreme's voice. There was ice behind their words.

Yon-Rogg's rage was building. They continued to discuss him as if he was not there bound in front of them. At last it broke within him and with a half animal cry he shook off the guards on either side of him. His hands clamped together by chains he managed to grab the handle of a knife and pull it from its sheath. There was a moment of shock before fury broke loose among the guards. Somewhere behind him he heard Vers cry out for him to stop but his blood was pounding too hard and she sounded too far away.

They tried to tackle him and pin him to the ground but he shook them off and continued to swing like a mad man. Carol was watching her plan crumble and burn before her. Yon-Rogg was determined to cut and slash his way to freedom. The Supreme stood towering above her shaking with fury.

"Kill him, Star. Kill him now" they commanded in a rasping voice as Yon-Rogg sunk his stolen blade into another torso.

Suddenly above them there was the screeching boom of her ship breaking into the atmosphere. Her comm began blinking and flashing red. It was time.

She ignited her hands feeling the surge of power in her blood. She had missed it, she realized. The guards fell away as she charged into the fray aglow like an avenging angel. She meant to tackle Yon-Rogg and drag him senseless to her ship. Instead he turned as she charged him, clipping her cheek with the blade of the knife.

Yon-Rogg's eyes went wide as she came beaming into his vision. He turned too fast forgetting the weapon in his hands. He watched as a single drop of blue blood welled from the slice and rolled down her cheek. His blood. Their blood. He dropped the knife with a clatter on the stone. Vers paused in shock. A gasp spread through the circle of guards. One word rippled to meet their ears 'blue'.

"Kill them both. They are Kree." The Supreme commanded and it was like time slowed down.

The guards crowded in on them. Crushing them beneath the circle of their bodies. For a moment there was only deafening silence before Vers' power exploded outward throwing the guards in the air, scattering their bodies and their weapons.

Their path momentarily clear Vers grabbed him by his chains and began dragging him to the wall. More guards piled in and Vers shot blindly behind her keeping them at a distance as she drove Yon-Rogg forward like a plow. At last they reached the smooth stone of the wall, impenetrable and solid.

"Now what, Vers?" Yon-Rogg growled picturing their death pinioned by primitive blades against this dead end. The guards closed in on them spears, blades and arrows at the ready.

"Just wait." She said through gritted teeth as she swung him in front of her by his manacles facing his back towards the blades as if he was her shield. Any remark he would have made died on his lips as she ignited her fist and began blowing through the stone wall. She made thankfully quick work of it. She turned them again quickly her iron grip on his manacles. He only got a brief glance of the sheer drop beyond the wall as she shoved him through the opening so he barely was able to gain purchase on the stones; his body leaned precariously out over the air. If she let go he might not survive the drop.

"Vers I hate this plan" he called to her the wind whipping around his ears.

"Shut up" she said sending one last blast into the room scattering the guards and propelling the two of them into the air beyond the fortress. She pulled him close as they arched in a controlled fall through the air. She pulled them up right so they hit the smooth stone of the courtyard at a run.

She was dragging him towards her ship. A hail of arrows fell around them sticking into the stone or bouncing off of it. Yon-Rogg's weakened muscles burned but he was determined to keep up with her. As they drew nearer the shield opened so they could clamber over the edge together.

He got in first pushing his long legged body as far back into the tight compartment as he could and she followed him. She sat between his legs and he dropped the circle of his arms over her so they were clasped uselessly in front, her body panting and pressed against him. She began immediately flicking switches the craft turning as arrows pinged uselessly off the side.

"Pathetic backwater" Yon-Rogg snarled as he felt Vers begin to taxi forward and the roar of the engine coming to life. They began to gain speed and the ground started to fall away from them. They tore with roaring speed over the tree line when he heard it.

The hollow low sucking sound. It surrounded them and echoed. The small craft shuddered.

"No, no, no" Vers muttered as she jerked around to look out on all sides. Clinging to trees and crawling along the ground were dozens of glow rats their backs arched and their sucking mouths thrown back draining the power from the ship. The began to fall, clipping the branches and sending debris flying.

"You steer" Vers cried above the noise pulling his pinioned hands onto the craft's steering.

Yon-Rogg had to fight against the jerking wheel. Meanwhile Vers laid her hands on the dash. She began to glow and the small cabin began to heat up. Energy began to spark around the cabin and the dimming lights of the console brightened again. The engine groaned back to life. He pulled them up, forcing the craft to climb too quickly and he could feel his vision blurring from the pressure, but the sucking sound was falling away behind them. The cabin was roasting him alive and the air was so charged with power it tingled against his skin and it felt thick to move through. He thought he could smell hair burning. At last they broke the atmosphere and he levelled the craft out. Vers collapsed back against him breathing heavily. The heat dissipated, the static disappeared.

For a fleeting moment Yon-Rogg thought it was beautiful seeing the pale jewel of Koonar curving beneath them and the infinite blackness of the galaxy above.

The craft was programmed to return to its ship. With the Koonarians grounded by their own native species; there was nothing to do but wait. Vers was a heavy weight against him. He released the steering system and slumped back against the hard upholstery of the craft's single seat. He thought Vers must be asleep she was so quiet, the escape for Koonar's atmosphere had literally drained her. He allowed himself to hold her tighter in the circle of his arms. The chains heavy and biting into his wrists. He thought he might sleep as well until he heard her voice murmur in his chest.

"You owe me one."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Close quarters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which every trope ever happens! Is it played out and weird? Yes. Is it slightly silly? Yes. Is it all I currently want to write? Also yes

Carol felt like she was floating. They were, she supposed, floating on the edge of the Koonar atmosphere. It was the alien mixture of her body feeling sluggish while her mind was abuzz. She had literally failed her mission, had exposed herself in a way that there was no coming back from, but she felt giddy. They had survived. And Mar-Vell might be alive.

 

They had remained silent ever since they had broken the atmosphere. It was for the best as they were in extremely close quarters and they were better when they were silent. His arms and body were relaxed and his heart was beating languidly in her ear. He was asleep then.

 

She gently turned his wrist seeing the marks the heavy manacles were making. His voice rumbled against her whole body so she could feel it right down to her teeth.

 

"What are you doing?"

 

"They look like they hurt."

 

"Maybe someone should do something about them" he countered lifting them against her palm.

 

"There is a bone saw on the ship. Would you prefer the wrist or the elbow?"

 

"I am serious. Remove them."

 

"I would but that might give you the impression you aren't my prisoner."

 

"Are you concerned what I might do if I am not chained up?" He was mocking her but there was a dark promise in his voice.

 

"Be good until the end of the flight and I will think about it"

 

Yon-Rogg groaned and tried to stretch away from her, but in the tiny pod there was no where their bodies didn't touch.

 

There was a time, Carol mused, when this would have felt normal. Surviving together, narrowly escaping traps, doing what was necessary in the name of the good fight. Now it all felt so polluted and twisted her skin itched thinking about him pressed against her.  
There had been no good fight. Mar-Vell had taught her that. Mar-Vell who was building an engine not for war but for travel. Run. Fly. Do not fight. Do not conquer. Survive. It was so fundamentally un-Kree. Carol's chest constricted yearning for the mentor she lost. 

 

Her strongest memories were her face worn by the Supreme Intelligence and she hated that. She hated how brief her glimpses of the real Dr. Lawson were that she couldn't be sure what was truth and what was fiction.

 

They fell into silence again, both weary and defeated by circumstance.

 

At last they reached her ship, the airlock opening wide to swallow the small pod. The landing was smooth as possible but they still clattered together and Yon-Rogg's arms instinctively braced against her so she didn't knock her head as she was awkwardly crouched too far up in the seat. The room around them hissed and air swirled around the craft clanking the restraints on the side of the air lock and fogging up the shield. The lights kicked off and for a brief moment they were curled around each other in the dark shell of the craft the world beyond obscured by the heat from their bodies meeting the cold of the airlock. Carol could feel the rush of blood in her ears and the thumping of a heart, but in the dark red light of the pod she wasn't sure whose heart it was.

 

Just as quickly as the peace fell the power surged and the overhead lights came on again flickering to life and buzzing loudly. Carol opened the hatch and ducked beneath Yon-Rogg's arms to exit the tiny space that had become smaller by the minute.

 

Vers scampered like a scared rat Yon-Rogg thought as he watched her pop quickly out and over the edges of the pod. He was slower the blood moving through him thickly. It had been cramped in there with no where to turn or adjust. 

 

"Are you coming?" She called out somewhere in the echoing ship.

 

"Easy for you, you haven't spent the last several hours chained up with someone sitting on your extremities" he called back frustrated at his own hampered body.

 

She popped up again on the other side of the craft her eyes looking down at him with mock pity. She stretched her arm out to him and he took it awkwardly between his hands.

 

"Just take them off, Vers."

 

"You know its the darnedest thing. I can't find the bone saw." He struggled over the side and landed awkwardly against the ship.

 

"This isn't funny. You will release me."

 

"Yon. Listen to me carefully. You. Are. My. Prisoner." She ennunciated each word crystal clear for him. And he sneered at her.

 

"What will you do, then Vers? Have me fumble around the ship until you come up with a plan?"

 

"Works for me." She shrugged leaving him leaning on the pod. He followed her the chain clanking along the ground. "Its like when Lawson put a bell on Goose. I'll always know where you are."

 

The ship was not large, but it was spacious enough to house a crew of four. Currently it only had Carol aboard. She walked through the winding body of the ship opening doors as they applied. They ended the brief tour in small galley.

 

"Food or shower first?" She asked leaning on the small metal table that was bolted to the floor, looking him up and down.

 

"You won't unshackle me but -" Carol held up a hand to stop him.

 

"You look like hell." And he grunted his agreement. Yon-Rogg was not vain, but he disliked being unkempt. It showed a lack of discipline. "So food or shower? Or airlock? I am happy to keep you in the airlock."

 

"You're too generous, Vers."

 

"Alright I have told you to stop calling me that. It's Carol. Car-ol." Yon-Rogg rolled his eyes at her.

 

"You think using her name will bring her back?" He walked closer to her the chain dragging on the floor. Carol's eyes widened a fraction and she leaned away from him. "She wasn't strong enough to survive the blast, but Vers is strong. She is a fighter, a warrior, she is everything the Terran couldn't be. If you think because a few rogue grey cells let you see her memories that you are her, then you are choosing to be weak."

 

He was close to her now saying all the things she hadn't wanted to think since she discovered the truth. Her hand gripped the table tightly, the photon energy crackling beneath her skin.

 

"Is that all you are now? You may think I was making you weak, but I wanted to make you strong without your powers." He put his hands on either side her the heavy chain cutting across her lap pressing down on her thighs. She slid back up onto the table spreading her legs so the chain pooled between them and Yon-Rogg could step closer to her. He radiated rage and something dark and barely contained. He slid himself between her thighs and her knees came together to grip him holding him where he was a hair's width from her. He growled low in his chest as Vers looked at him defiantly. She licked her lips as if her mouth had gone dry.

 

"No. I am more than that." She said putting her against the side of his neck tracing his jugular. Feeling his blood rush beneath her fingers he growled again even lower.

 

"Tell me what you are." He murmured leaning closer so he could see her pulse fluttering above her collar bone. Vers' hand moved between her legs.

 

"The bitch with the chain" she answered before flaring her hand again fusing the primitive links into the table. She rolled herself neatly off and away from his fettered reach.

 

He made a half animal sound as he tried to rip the melted metal free, but it was no use. His muscles were weak and the metal was fused too completely. His hands could barely lift off the table and he had been leaning too far forward his only option was to sit in the stool bolted to the table or risk losing his balance.

 

"I told you to be good." She chastised as she began poking around the cupboards in the small galley.

 

"You can't keep me here." 

 

Carol popped her head out of a cupboard. "You will find I can, but please feel free to use all your strength to try and pull that table out of the floor. It would be very strategic of you."

 

Yon-Rogg sat back snarling and rapping his hands on the table. Carol joined him with a sigh putting a plate down in front of him. Yon-Rogg looked at it and then back up at her.

 

"Listen don't judge I wasn't expecting guests-" the chain clinked as Yon-Rogg lifted his hands emphatically they would not raise above a few scant inches. "Right. Okay. Or that."

 

She stepped hesitantly closer to him picking up the plate so she could sit on the table between his hands.

 

She began to peel away the thick skin of a root revealing the soft white flesh beneath. Yon-Rogg watched her hands with laser focus. She made to hold the fruit out to him, but thought better of it and held it farther off.

 

"I swear if you bite me I'll-" Yon-Rogg grabbed her elbow with one chained hand and bit furiously into the soft flesh of the root. Juice flowed over Carol's fingers and down the sensitive flesh of her wrist. "Or that."

 

Yon-Rogg shamelessly devoured it with long sucking bites. When her hand was empty he ran a hungry tongue from her wrist, over her palm and tucking a last lick between her fingers before releasing her hand with a grunt of disgust.

 

"They starved me Vers. I have no interest in your concerns for your safety."

 

"Well as long as we agree about the biting." Her voice was small with surprise. There was not much else to be had other rubbery dried meat she had picked up on one end of the galaxy. Yon-Rogg didn't complain. He ate silently and with focus, Carol perched awkwardly between the table and stool.

 

When they were through Vers hovered over him she reached out a hand and ran it along his chin, feeling where the tawny whiskers had sprouted during his capture. Yon-Rogg was grateful there was no mirror around. He felt more animal the man at the moment and he didn't want to look at himself. Vers was irritating him with her caring. At times there was something so soft behind her eyes it made him want to spill everything into her. He tightened his jaw as her other hand began caressing him so his face was cradled between her hands. If he could he would have batted her away.

 

"You look like Hell." She said at last.

 

"So you keep telling me"

 

"Wait here" she said before abandoning him at the small table.

 

"As if I have a choice." He muttered to no one.

 

She returned stripped out of her suit in loose clothes her hair up and out of her face. He had been trapped in his suit so long part of him wondered if he would have skin left when he removed it. She carried a small metal box with her and a towel thrown over her shoulder. To his surprise she also had a bowl of water.

 

She slid back between him and the table and began unpacking the box. She lay out crude tools one after the other, every once in awhile glancing at him to check his reaction. Once the box was unpacked she leant forward with hesitant hands. Her eyes had a sensitive look to them again. He briefly pictured biting into the soft flesh of her neck as she leaned passed him. Just to see if he could make the look disappear.

 

"What are you doing?" He asked practically in her ear she was so close to him. He felt the clasps around his shoulders and neck release as she made quick work of them. It stung as she pulled it away and air breezed over his compression shirt. His hands manacled to the table she couldn't do much more, but he felt exposed none the less.

 

"This is the tricky part" she said leaning in to wipe the dampened end of the towel over his his neck and collar bones. He felt the warm water hit his skin and immediately begin to cool. It felt so good he shivered a little. She dampened it again in the water and ran it over his chin.

 

"This doesn't answer me what you are doing." Her hands were busy again fiddling with glinting silver tools that sat on the table.

 

"You see the problem is I think right now would be a bad time to give you anything sharp." She answered lifting his chin and brushing something over him. It had a familiar smell and tingled over his skin. He felt the bubbling and popping of foam. "Stay still."

 

She settled even closer into him one hand keeping his face where she wanted it. The other moving a slick silver blade over him. He felt the scratch of it pulling away lather and hair. She worked in sharp short strokes and he was the focus of her intense attention. She curled into him holding his face gently but firmly. He could feel her breath passing over his ear lobe and he had to fight the urge to move his hands around her waist.

 

"Where did you learn that?" He asked when she was done, her tools packed away and her hands busy cleaning foam from his skin. Yon-Rogg felt a tinge of something deep in his stomach thinking about her being this way with some faceless other.

 

"My Dad. He liked to fight. He also didn't like to go to court with a week's worth of stubble. So I learned to help"

 

She left with the box and Yon-Rogg was left to wonder what their plan would be. When she came back again she had a small bundle with her.

 

"Are you really going to leave me like this?"

 

"No" she answered pulling a small metal pin from her hair she fell upon one lock. It took her forever fiddling away her head bowed over one manacle.

 

"Just break it." He said losing his patience.

 

"I want to keep my options open" she grinned at him. Finally the lock sprung free and she gave a triumphant cry. Yon-Rogg immediately snatched his hand away rolling his wrist protectively. The second one was faster.

 

"Go shower" she said pushing clothes into his chest and Yon-Rogg wondered distantly whose they were.

 

He was eternally grateful for Kree innovation. He thought it in unsurpassed in the galaxy, but that had made his armour feel no less than a prison as the days stretched before him. Peeling it away from him and revealing his tender flesh beneath felt akin to being hatched from an egg. He stepped beneath the spurting head of the shower and felt the sour sweat rolling off of him.

 

He would not luxuriate in here as tempting as it was there was something unnerving about being so exposed near Vers. She had not changed, not really, no matter what she wanted to call herself now. He had nearly lost himself in her earlier. She had been wrapped around him so pliant and focused. He could not stop himself picturing what other things he could have done if he had not been literally bound in place.

 

He was glad now she had left the locks whole. They would work well on her if it came to it. If she fought him when it was time to return to Hala. He could make her see. Make her understand how much was still left for them among the Kree.

 

He dressed in the dark. He could still not bare to look at his weak malnourished body or the marks that were left on it.

 

He was vaguely aware of the ship coming alive around him. He felt metal beneath his feet begin to thrum. He moved quickly to the main walk, bracing himself as the ship began to turn. They were undeniably moving.

 

"Vers what's going on?" He asked bursting into the cock pit. Vers' fingers were flying over the switches. Readying them to jump.

 

"We got a distress call. I need you to strap in now."

 

He moved quickly into action sitting in the co-pilots seat, strapping himself in.

 

"Who sent the distress call?"

 

She was tellingly silent and he felt a tiny spike of rage inside him.

 

"Vers, who?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad plans with new friends. Worse plans with old ones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to post this earlier but then I rage ate 5 1/2 snack cakes and drank a cider and had to lie down for the next 14hrs because apparently being 30 means I can no longer process sugar and booze with the same vengeance I used to.
> 
> Otherwise, thank you for all the nice comments you make me want to write all the time....instead of doing all that work they pay me to do.

It could have gone better. 

Carol was not sure what she had expected to happen. It had seemed so obvious on Koonar. Take Yon-Rogg and escape. Except now he was on the ship she didn't know what to do with him. He had come out of Koonar prison an unexpectedly changed man. Yon-Rogg who preached control in every facet of life felt unhinged now. He growled and grunted more than he spoke, but more than that he felt hungry. Not just for the meager rations she fed him but for something else. She felt a bristling heat spread up her spine as she thought about what had happened in the galley. She'd seen the opportunity and she had taken it, but some brash thoughtless part of her had considered letting him closer. To see what he would do.

 

She curled up in the captain's chair where she had retreated once she had released him. She didn't want to think about him prowling the ship or hot under the spray of the shower. She wanted to forget everything again and just stare out at the vast expanse of space.

 

She felt more at home staring into the void than she did on any planet. She was a creature of the void now. She ached with an emptiness that her slivers of memory couldn't fill.

 

Yon-Rogg had been right. She was no longer Carol Danvers. Not truly. She had stood on the earth and held close the people Carol had loved, but that didn't make her Carol reborn. It didn't make her Vers either she argued back. Yon wanted it to be one or the other, but if picking one killed the other she would choose Carol. She would choose the Terran woman. She would also choose Mar-Vell; she would carry a legacy of peace and resilience in the face of destruction through the galaxy. There were worse things to fill an empty shell.

 

A low airy whistle broke her revery and she saw a light blinking above her. She flicked through to the comm and saw a string of numbers. Coordinates. There was only one other ship that would be calling to her. And they wouldn't send coordinates lightly.

 

Carol's mind went blank. She was focused on one purpose, she had to get to them. She felt the ship hum to life beneath her and she began preparing to follow the signal. She heard the unfamiliar sound of bare feet on metal and it was only when Yon-Rogg lurched into the cock pit did she remember she wasn't alone. She also felt her heart drop as she remembered who she was running to. 

 

She couldn't not go to them. Yon-Rogg would have to be dealt with when it came to it. She couldn't predict what he would do now.

 

"We got a distress call. I need you to strap in."

 

To her surpise Yon-Rogg obeyed silently. There was something in him that still reacted like a soldier would even if he had developed wilder habits in prison.

 

"Who sent the distress call?"

 

Carol couldn't think of a good answer so she stayed silent. 

 

"Vers, who?"

 

With a series of silent commands they punched through to the jump.

 

Carol was surprised when it wasn't a ship that appeared to in front of them after the jump but a moon. The coordinates had them arrive outside a massive red planet, the surface swirled and moved with raging dust storms. And hanging in space where she thought there would be a ship was a small dark moon. Carol double checked her comm and watched the distress signal die. The string of numbers was replaced with a question.

 

'Fancy a drink?'

 

"I don't see a ship" Yon-Rogg stated looking at the small barren planet below. "Where are we?"

 

"Helgentar" Carol's eyes swept up to her nav system. "This is a Kree mining planet."

 

Why would they be here? A sick feeling settled in Carol's stomach as she stood up. She would have to go down to the surface and find out.

 

"Why are we here?" 

 

"I have a date. Stay here. Be good." Carol climbed over the arm of the captain's chair and left the cockpit. Yon-Rogg paused for a moment to wrestle with the clip of his harness before following after her.

 

"What do you mean, Vers? I am not going to just sit on this ship."

 

Carol kept walking towards her quarters. Ignoring him. She could feel Yon-Rogg's frustration ticking up behind her but she was ignoring it.

 

Vers had that hard line to her mouth which always indicated trouble was imminent. Yon-Rogg followed close behind her feeling some unnamed emotion licking up the inside of his gut. She wouldn't tell him who she was meeting and she expected him to just sit, neutered, on the ship.

 

She hit the panel to open her quarters and walked in. Yon-Rogg hovered outside them. He wanted an answer.

 

"What are you doing now?"

 

"I can't go down to the surface of an unknown planet in a Van Halen t shirt." She answered him as she rooted around in the drawers set into the wall. Keeping her back to him she slid the shirt over her head exposing the pale smooth expanse of her back. Yon-Rogg turned quickly around so his back was to her. To his annoyance he could feel his pulse beating low in his groin. He had a sneaking suspicion Vers was mocking him.

 

Carol glanced over her shoulder as she rolled a black compression shirt over her body, she'd heard the rustle as Yon-Rogg whipped around at light speed. His back was to her now shoulders tense, spine ram rod straight. She slid her sweats off and shimmied into her thick red leggings. Everything she wore was interwoven with a kinetic dampening poly fibre. It was like having thin lines of kevlar wrapping around her; impact proof, knife proof and wouldn't be damaged by the photon energy.

 

She hoped she wouldn't need it as she threw on her coat.

 

Yon-Rogg heard her clicking drawers shut and turned to look at her again. He looked her up and down. It was a quick glance more cursory than appreciative, but he felt the urge to back her into the wall and make her tell him what was going on. She caught him looking and quirked an eyebrow at him.

 

"What would you wear to a hot date?" She slid passed him and started back the way they came. Yon-Rogg growled low in his throat.

 

"I don't go on dates Vers I am a Starforce commander-"

 

"Were. You were a Starforce commander."

 

He side stepped her, making her have to stop or walk into him. Her back hit the wall of the ship.

 

"And who's fault is that?" He said his voice dark with a deeply held rage. He was close to her his eyes locking with her so she could have no question who he blamed for his current situation.

 

"Yours, Yon." She pushed passed him knocking her shoulder into his. A warning not to try to block her again. She heard the hollow metal of him hitting the ship but didn't turn to look at him. He was behind her again following close on her heels.

 

"I am losing patience. I won't just sit here like your pet."

 

"I could lock you to the table again if you wanted" She arched her eyebrows at him and Yon-Rogg hated how dry his throat got.

 

Yon-Rogg stepped closer to her. Carol could have sworn the gold of his eyes darkened to amber for a fleeting second. She knew he was done playing, done with the quips and avoidance.

 

"Three rules; no throwing the first punch, no saying the K-word and absolutely no rhetoric." She listed the three rules on her fingers in quick succession. Yon-Rogg thought for a moment before agreeing.

 

Landing the ship on the small moon was relatively simple. The barren surface had few obstactles. She flew low in the atmosphere scanning for their meeting place. It was easy to spot. The moon was used as border town relieving the influx and outflux of workers. There was nothing on the surface but dilapidated tents streaked with red dust and one building that had a roughly marked sign hanging off the front. That was their destination.

 

The bar was dense with drinkers, but the din was subdued. The patrons were deep in their well worn habits of solace rather than out to socialize. Carol scanned the room, Yon-Rogg so close behind her she could feel the heat of him against her back.

 

She scanned one way noting several lone patrons. She scanned the room again and briefly she saw her own face sitting at a table in the back. As quickly as she saw it she was gone and a grizzled man sat in her place.

 

"Vers" Yon-Rogg grabbed her shoulder warning her.

 

"Three rules, Yon" Carol said holding up her three fingers again and walking to the table. The man seeing who was behind her visibly tensed. She held her hands up in peace hoping she could at least make it to the table before a fight broke out.

 

"Carol" Talos greeted her.

 

"Talos" Carol nodded and Yon-Rogg scoffed behind her.

 

"You recognize him?"

 

"Of course" Carol smiled affectionately before reaching out to Talos. "He always makes the ears too small."

 

"Hey" Talos tugged on his ear self consciously adjusting the size slightly. "Its not easy you know."

 

Carol felt Yon-Rogg grip her upper arm tightly until she dropped her hand away from Talos.

 

"Go get us drinks" Yon-Rogg snarled at her

 

"Why would I do that?"

 

"You just broke me out of prison. I am a little tight on credits right now" Yon-Rogg sat at the table his look was dark and Carol was suddenly on edge about what would happen if she left.

 

"Go. It will be fine. Give us a minute." Talos answered his look almost as dark but unreadable behind the stranger's mask.

 

Carol groaned in frustration, she had traveled thousands of miles and they were already cutting her out. She held up three fingers to Yon-Rogg and he held up three back. Giving in to the inevitable Carol took off towards the bar.

 

"What do you want with Vers?" Yon-Rogg snarled at the hunched figure as soon as she was out of earshot. He suspected she was still in contact with the Skrulls but to see the open affection between the two made his blood boil.

 

"To me, you look like a man who was dishonourably discharged. Why keep the fight alive between us?"

 

"Says the coward wearing another man's face."

 

The grizzled miner melted before his eyes and Yon-Rogg found him staring into his own face.

 

"Why? Scared I might take yours?" The boil turned into a cold hard rage, Yon-Rogg had a slippery grasp on his promise to Vers. "Scared she might not be able to tell the difference between us? Maybe she would decide she likes me better."

 

"You would never fool her. Vers and I share something you can never understand. You could never pretend to be who I am to her."

 

"We could make new memories though" the Skrull's voice was low and intimate. He was looking at Yon-Rogg with his own face and it made him feel cold to watch his own eyes flick to Vers something unreadable in them. He snapped.

 

He lunged foreward grabbing the front of his jacket and bringing his fist back as the Skrull's face melted back into the miner's.

 

"What did I say, Yon?" She slammed the two glasses down beside him and Yon-Rogg snapped back. He released the Skrull and sat back down. His knuckles white on the table.

 

"It's my fault." Talos lifted apologetic eyes to her, lifting his hands in peace. "I said some things I didn't mean. Got a little personal."

 

"Then I am mad at both of you. You better talk fast why you called me." She sat too, grabbing one of the glasses. She took a sizable gulp forcing down the thin sour taste of poorly fermented grains.

 

"I think I have found us a home."

 

"How? Where?" A thrill went through Carol a frisson of excitement laced with fear. If the Skrulls soon had a home, what would her purpose be? She hadn't pictured her life after completing this mission.

 

"You hear things lurking around the guards here. They all tell tale of a planet in this star system. Onigaia. The planet with the population of one. Sounds like a paradise reserved for a single Kree and their guards. We capture it."

 

"What if the Kree come to take it back?"

 

"There is no where in this galaxy they won't come for us, but maybe if we hide beneath their noses we might have a chance to build something that can survive against them."

 

"Mar-Vell wanted this war to end. Not for you to hope to survive."

 

"You don't know what Mar-Vell felt. Not what her plan for us was. Not like I did." Carol felt a stab of pain. She couldn't argue with him. Mar-Vell to her was a mix of dream, memory and fantasy.

 

"And you won't tell me that plan."

 

"You aren't keeping good company these days." He said his eyes flicking from her face, Yon-Rogg ignored him taking an angry swallow of the watery beer.

 

"I'll see what I can do." Carol nodded trying to keep the hurt out of her voice. This wasn't about her. Or her feelings.

 

She stood up and began walking out of the bar. They were at an end. She had her orders. 

 

Yon-Rogg drained the last of the beer in his glass. Staring at the Skrull. They didn't break eye contact each draining their acrid drink.

 

"I would rather kill you than let you follow her."

 

"I would rather kill you."

 

Yon-Rogg stood and felt the static of the alcohol flood between his muscles and tendons. He wasn't in the habit of drinking and his body had lived off so little, he felt soft and faraway. He followed Vers trying to negotiate with his limbs that he wasnt that drunk.

 

She was already back in the captain's chair when he boarded the ship again.

 

"Strap in." Her voice was drawn and cold, Vers on lock down.

 

He wordlessly climbed in beside her. She punched in coordinates but he didn't look. He was watching her instead, reading all the micro expressions she thought she had trained out of herself. He could read them so clearly.

 

She flew them to the edge of the Helgentar system. They were in retreat for the moment until she knew what she was doing. Talos had shaken her up. She had been happy to see him and hear his voice. He had gone on lock down when he saw Yon-Rogg and she couldn't blame him. She didn't know why they were together. Why she couldn't leave him to his fate on Koonar.

 

She went to the galley. She leaned against the counter turning a bruised fruit around in her hands. They never travelled well these swollen soft varieties, but foolishly every time she came across them on some alien planet she bought a few. Despite her hurt her body felt warm and languid. The beer had been terrible but her tired body allowed the fog to take hold just a little. She bit into the flesh and chewed the sweet bruised mush that was like sugared sand against her tongue.

 

Yon-Rogg followed her to the kitchen and settled himself across from her against the table. She hated the way his eyes weighed her like he understood her down to the last molecule. He didn't.

 

"Stop staring. If you are hungry just say something." She was out of patience for the whole situation.

 

He laughed once more to himself and he swaggered towards her. It was the long confident strides of her old commander. He looked like himself again. He stopped just in front of her.

 

"Vers," he said voice barely above a whisper. "I am hungry."

 

Before she could respond or step away he was already sliding his hand around her waist. His palm was hot through her clothes and the way his fingers found the edge of her waistband so they slid rough and hot over her skin made her feel like tracks of light followed wherever he touched. His palm found her spine and he slid his hand down, his long middle finger tracing the hard ridge of her tailbone. He followed it to the end pushing the pad of his finger against the hidden bundle of nerves. She didn't think anyone had ever touched her there, the heel of his palm digging into the sore muscles of her lower back and his finger just pressing into the tip of her tailbone. It sent a shiver through her and she felt the nerve endings between her legs shimmer alive.

 

He leaned his hips into her, pinning her throughly against him with the strength in one finger. Carol swallowed hard against raw desire to be touched and heady awareness of the person touching her. This path led to disaster.

 

It had eaten away at him, Talos' taunt. The idea that Vers could mistake someone else's touch for his own. The desire to teach her exactly how he would take her had overwhelmed him since he had stared into his own gold eyes. He had resisted, but the hard line of her mouth. Her obvious hurt. She felt like a wounded animal. Easy to corner.

 

He wouldn't go too far. Just a quick lesson in where he liked to touch a woman. In how he would open her. Just so she would know, he argued to himself, if someone else tried to take advantage of her.

 

His other hand cupped her neck, pushing the heel of his hand harder than necessary into the soft flesh so he could feel the thrum of her pulse rushing with his own blood. She made a cracked broken sound as he held her chin and ducked his head. He fit his thumb in the dip beneath her mouth, rolled his thumb downward unsealing her lips so when he pressed his mouth against her his tongue was able to find wetness immediately.

 

She tasted like the fruit she had been eating, the flesh leaving her tongue cold to his hot mouth. He wanted to hold her there until she warmed for him and he was able to taste her for her.

 

He never got the chance. Vers slipped her hand between them as he had been caught up trying to find her beneath the sugar and sour of her last meal. He felt the heat a moment before the pressure of the small photon blast that pushed him back, his body colliding with the metal table in the middle of the room.

 

"Behave or I will lock you up again" Vers said her face a mask to him

 

"Promise?" He growled after her as she fled the room.

 

He heard the woosh of her quarters opening and closing. And he was alone with the heat of her still burning his chest.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tilted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen guys, lets just get through this one...
> 
>  
> 
> 😬😬😬

It was not going well.

 

It was one hundred percent not going well at all. She was certain that this was not the way you kept prisoners. Although, she had been a prisoner for six years and didn't notice so maybe she wasn't as far off the mark as she thought. Carol leaned back against the door to her quarters, she was holding in a scream. She pushed frustrated fingers into her hair and counted backwards from ten. It was, she reasoned with herself, just a kiss. A kiss she had put a very thorough stop to. So she could stop thinking about it.

 

Just stop. Thinking about it. She gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to go back out there and tell Yon-Rogg that if he pulled anything like that again she would put him in the airlock. Yon-Rogg was not himself right now. She had seen it before in other soldiers after incidents. It made them want to push back against whatever terrified them. The ability to swallow each other's pain was what made soldier's life hard to explain to those on the outside.

 

She had just swallowed Yon-Rogg's pain. That meant more than how she'd done it. They would both sleep it off and then they could do something with it. 

 

Carol shook off her jacket and let it fall heavy on the floor. She turned around and looked at where the jacket fell. There had been a clunk she was certain of it. She found her eyes falling on the jacket again and again as she stripped out of her clothes and pulled her Van Halen shirt back on. She inhaled deeply as it slid over her head. It smelled like Maria. Maria who loved Carol Danvers so much she had kept every scrap of her stockpiled in her house. Carol crouched against her bunk trying hard not to cry. Not to rush to the cockpit and run home to Maria.

 

Rogue specks of grey matter. That was what Yon-Rogg had called it. These small things inside her that felt so strong she wanted to hide inside them. She tried to press the shards deeper inside herself. She wouldn't cry over what had been lost. She was Captain Marvel now. She breathed in deeply through her nose pulling the tears and the scratchy feeling deeper. She would find the Skrulls a home. She would bring Mar-Vell's message of peace across the galaxy and she would spend every minute in between protecting what Carol Danvers loved.

 

That didn't leave room for Yon-Rogg.

 

She crawled on her knees across the metal floor of her room and pulled her jacket toward her. It rattled against the floor. There was something in there. She fished around in the pockets until she pulled out a small drive. Talos must have slipped it in her pocket.

 

Carol clasped it in her hands and stood up quickly. The only place to open it was in the ship's console. She put her ear to the door and not hearing anything slid open her quarters. She slipped through the hallway hoping Yon-Rogg was not waiting around some corner to grab her.

 

She threw herself into the captain's chair and plugged in the drive. Across the shield an image sputtered to life. Carol sat forward feeling her heart pound in her chest.

 

It was Mar-Vell. Her heart squeezed. To her it was Dr. Wendy Lawson. Her mentor. A woman who gave her her own slice of sky. She was watching her face squinting in concentration very close to the camera. A smile broke out.

 

"There we go." She adjusted taking a step back and her lab orbiting Earth came into view behind her. "This is the first power up of the core. Hopefully this will stand to document my success. Or if not I can rest easy knowing the evidence of my failure will be destroyed."

 

She smiled at the camera and Carol smiled back. She had forgotten how funny Lawson could be.

 

There were multiple clips each one flickering and damaged, strung together on the drive. Small moments of experimentation, triumph, disappointment and retrospection. There were no full recordings each would start and stop seemingly from what could be salvaged.

 

Lawson was sitting in a chair, the lab out of focus behind her. Goose was on her lap.

 

"I have taken steps to begin testing in the atmosphere below. C 53 or Earth as its inhabitants call it has many ecological points to recommend it. Its people also have aspiration and imagination when it comes to science that is unprecedented given its current position on the technological development timeline. I feel I can trust them with what I am building. I feel the answer to finding lasting peace is below me.-"

 

The clip cut out and the screen went black. Carol felt like crying again, every muscle so stiff from containing herself she felt like she might crack. She also felt a swell of gratitude to Talos, that he thought to give her this. She felt full of love. There were so many small things she had forgotten. The way her voice would be so full of hope, the crinkle around her eyes when she smiled, the way she held Goose. Small details that had fallen away.

 

She reached forward and restarted the drive.

 

Yon-Rogg had tried to go to sleep. His body had begged for it. Lying down in the dark had allowed his mind to fill the darkness with wild imaginings. Including that every rustle and sound would be Vers coming to him. He had been so patient during their life on Hala, knowing that she felt what was between them. She just didn't understand it. She didn't understand what it meant to accept his blood.

 

He knew it formed her earliest memory; he made sure she knew whose blood she received. He supposed it would have been easier to fill in the gaps of her memory with the lie that they were man and wife, but he could not stomach the idea of creating a fake life together. Regardless of how she ended up strapped to the bed in Med Bay with his blood invading her cells, burning the Terran out of her, they had shared their first day. She was as new and foreign to him as he was to her.

 

He had felt uneasy whenever she was far from him. Even the walls separating their quarters had felt suffocating on nights when he would open the comm and listen to her panting and whimpering as she was haunted by her dying Terran life. He had thought when he had watched the blue of his blood enter her veins he would feel the height of his desire for her. He had been unprepared for the years that followed when his control had been pushed to the limits. Especially when she challenged his orders, when she pushed to have her way. The desire always gripped him, not to argue, but to simply push her into the dirt of whatever alien planet they were on and give their desires free reign. Kree women were not submissive by any stretch of the imagination, but mating could be used as a way to determine dominance. And he was certain given that he would have been her first she would have been easy to mold to his will.

 

He had controlled himself and abstained during those six years, wanting her to come to the understanding on her own that she possessed him. That he had given himself to her and she had accepted. He wanted her to understand that she carried in her veins his power and glory. That she was more precious to him than he had words to describe.

 

That their year apart had nearly killed him and he could not be patient anymore.

 

His skin ached with want. He sat up no longer comforted by the dark. He slid from his bunk and left the crew quarters. Her door would be locked, but perhaps he could talk his way in.

 

Once he was in the hall he saw the flickering light coming from the cock pit. He walked towards it, hearing another voice. One he had not heard for a long time. He ducked his head through the door and saw the traitor talking to Vers. No, he realized, not talking. The clip flickered and jumped. They were recordings.

 

He looked to the captain's chair and the first thing he saw were long pale legs draped over the arm. He swallowed, a loud dry sound in his own ears. He stepped closer and saw Vers asleep. The changing colours of the recording washing over her. She looked small and peaceful. He felt a stab of hate towards the traitor that Vers would wrap herself up in the comfort of these memories. He stopped the play back with a hard click. He glanced up and saw the blink of a message on the comm. He clicked through.

 

'Be careful, sweets' was all it said. Yon-Rogg deleted it, a dark devouring feeling growing in the pit of his chest. He turned the chair and crouched in front of Vers, her brow creasing with the movement.

 

He wanted to shake her awake.

 

Instead he scooped her up in his arms and she made a low sound of protest. She was built like a warrior and it wasn't effortless to hold her; Vers and her long legs. Yon-Rogg paused trying to picture how he was going to navigate them through the ship. For that moment, she was warm against him in the low red light of the cockpit; the darkness of the Helgentar system swirling out in front of them. He shifted her in his arms as best he could so her head lolled forward into the crook of his neck.

 

"Put me down if I am so heavy." Her voice murmured in his ear.

 

"If you are awake enough to complain then you should help me out" he whispered in return. Vers shifted against him so her arms were looped around his neck.

 

"Why am I letting you do this?" She groaned into her arm as he hiked her higher against his chest.

 

"You're tired. It will be our secret."

 

"Great another secret, just what I need." She moved her head so her ear was pressed to his shoulder listening to the blood rush there. Yon-Rogg wished she would understand why she sought that sound, that she would open her eyes to how impossible it was to live her life as anything other than Vers.

 

Carol couldn't remember the last time she had been carried to bed. It was certainly not something her father had ever done. She didn't know why she was letting Yon now. Maybe because she had woken up already in his arms, her bare foot brushing the copilot's arm rest. She was so tired and he was warm and solid. It had seemed easier to stay than to wriggle out of his grasp.

 

 _Keep this up Carol and you might as well_ \- the voice inside didn't finish its warning, but instead filled her head with a picture of her and Yon-Rogg curled around each other. Carol didn't consider herself bashful but she did bury her head deeper into Yon's shoulder. They would be at her door soon she thought and then she could stop thinking about the way his hand was digging into the bare flesh of her thigh and the way they jostled against each other as he walked.

 

"Give me the code to your door." He shuffled her to free his hand.

 

"Just put me down" she said trying to roll herself out of his grip. His arms tightened around her.

 

"Just give me the code."

 

"No. Put me down." The peace that had settled over them was evaporating fast. Carol was no longer drifting on the edge of sleep.

 

Yon-Rogg had always had the code to her old quarters. On Hala, he had had unfettered access to her life. Cursing against the obstinate woman in his arms he tried the old code. The lock popped. And Vers froze in his arms. He rolled her more firmly into his grip as the door wooshed open. Three long steps and he deposited her on the mattress.

 

He stepped away from her and looked down. He had expected to see her scowling at him. Maybe she'd launch a pillow at his head. He was not prepared for the wide eyes looking at him and the shaken way she held herself.

 

"What is it?"

 

"How much did you know, Yon?"

 

"What?" 

 

"When we were on Hala, how much did you know?"

 

He could lie to her, he thought desperately. He could lie, but what lie would be enough? He realized the time for lying had passed. He had lost the battle on C 53, but he wouldn't lose the war for Vers' fidelity. It was too late to win it with lies. A commander knew when to restrategize.

 

"Everything"

 

She nodded letting the realization gain ground slowly. He had known the code to her door, her nightmares, he had known they intentionally stripped away her life on Earth. He had known that the Supreme Intelligence had stunted her powers. She had thought he was just misguided. Indoctrinated. It had been her instinct to forgive a soldier for his orders.

 

"Why did you come for Mar-Vell?" Her mouth was a hard line now. If Yon-Rogg was going to talk she would take everything he would give.

 

"She betrayed the Empire. She was helping our enemies escape justice." Yon-Rogg's eyes still burned with conviction.

 

"Why are the Skrulls your enemy? Why don't you want them to find peace?"

 

"The Kree offered them everything. They would have shared their glory and brought peace to their world. The Skrulls denied our gifts. They rejected the Kree, so they shall know no peace."

 

"How am I different than them?" Carol felt so cold. Would he give her no peace? Would he pursue her until one of them died?

 

"You are Kree. You accepted what we offered. Gave your body to the Empire."

 

"The Supreme Intelligence made me this way. I did not accept it. I would never have chosen you, Yon."

 

"You did." His look was dark. Something barely contained sat behind his impassive face.

 

"I was dying. I was at your mercy, I chose nothing." Carol wanted to yell again.

 

"You chose me when you survived."

 

Carol longed to tell him that she wished she had died then. That Carol Danvers had been allowed to die a hero. She knew though that that would be a lie, crafted to hurt him. To push him back farther from her because Carol would not die just because some blue blooded bastard shot her out of the sky.

 

She thought of Talos and his family. The hope of finding them a new home.

 

"Do you know what Onigaia is?"

 

"Yes"

 

"Do you know where it is?"

 

"Yes"

 

Carol began to sit up, to clamber all awkward long limbs out of the bed.

 

"We are going. You are taking me. Now."

 

"No." Yon-Rogg pushed her down easily. Sinking her back into the bed with the weight of his hand on her shoulder.

 

Vers was being stubborn and Yon-Rogg felt the frustration growing. She had lost her senses if he thought he would take her to Onigaia just because she had told him to. 

 

"I saved you" she cried out at him knocking his hand from her shoulder. He dodged a sloppy kick to his stomach and managed to lock her ankle under his arm pinning it to his side. Her control was crumbling in front of him. Good, he thought, he was sick of her facade.

 

In a flash he crouched low and yanked backwards pulling her off the mattress in a knot of blankets and twisting limbs.

 

Carol's ass hit the floor hard. She brought her heel down and broke his grip. As he twisted to maintain his balance she kicked his back leg out from under him so he fell hard on his knees. She was already fighting her way into a proper stance. She sprung forward to knee him in the chest, but he recovered faster than she thought he would. He caught her below her ribs and stood with her half thrown over his shoulder. The world tipped and Carol found her body slammed back into the mattress, Yon-Rogg's legs pinning her and his hands holding her arms above her head.

 

Carol grit her teeth and felt the energy in her hands flare to life. She was moments from blasting him across the room. Yon-Rogg had to feel the crackle as the air around him became charged.

 

"Is this how we are going to keep settling it, Vers?" He leaned his body harder into her. 

 

She fired, propelling him hard into the wall of her quarters. A groaning metal din filled the ship and Carol felt the tell tale woosh in her stomach as the ship began to tilt.

 

She slid off the bed as the floor became the wall and her bed became the ceiling. Yon-Rogg was crumpled and dazed as Carol was sliding towards him. He caught her feet and pulled her so she ended up curled sideways in his lap, his arms and knees locking around her body.

 

She immediately began to push away from him, but he gripped her harder.

 

"We can't get away from each other." His voice was rough from impact. He was holding her tight against his chest and she could feel his heart not as a distant beat but as a hard throb. All of him seemed to pulse around her.

 

"Will you kill me, Yon?"

 

"I killed you once. I killed you so you could thrive. So you could be more than yourself. So the Supremor could show you the way."

 

She struggled against him and he let her go. She had no where to go but to awkwardly crawl along the tilted ship. She stood, bracing herself against what was once her floor.

 

"The SI abandoned you. They jettisoned you off to die on a planet they wouldn't even think to conquer, but you act like I am the one who has betrayed you? You are blind Yon, if you think you are any different than Talos." 

 

Yon-Rogg lay his body thrumming with anger and frustration as she continued to clamber along the wall.

 

"Wait" he said as she reached the door and prepared to open it. In the distance he heard the dull siren of the ship alerting them they had been floating on their side. He slid along the wall to her. 

 

"I can do it myself" she said before pulling herself up and over.

 

He heard the brief sound of skittering metal before the ship hummed to life around him. The room tilted again and Yon-Rogg struggled to remain upright.

 

He knew better than to be in her room when she returned.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smells like Kree Spirit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Saturday!
> 
> Remember friends don't let friends be brainwashed by good looking alien warriors.
> 
> Its been so fun talking to you guys. Anyone who came here because of Chalice might recognize some stuff below 😉😉

Yon-Rogg was gone when she returned to her room. At least he had some sense of self preservation, even if Carol didn't. She scrubbed her hands over her face. 

 

She'd been alone too long that was all. She wasn't used to it or made for it. She had always been part of something larger. Carol Danvers had had the army and Maria. Vers had had Starforce. Captain Marvel was alone.

 

She had to remind herself that Yon-Rogg was not to be trusted. She had been making excuses for him and letting him get further and further into her head. Refusing to admit she wanted him. Had wanted him on Hala. She had constantly pushed against the growing feelings because he was her Commander and her mentor. She relied on him and he had given her special liberties, but that wasn't a good enough reason to give into desire.

 

Now, there was even less reason, but she couldn't let it go. The damaged trust, his blind allegiance to the Kree Empire and his crumbling self control were all good reasons to stay the hell away from him. She couldn't though. She had given into him recklessly at every turn. Talos was right, she was keeping bad company.

 

The problem was he now knew about Onigaia. About their plan there.

 

Carol slept fitfully, in her dreams Mar-Vell was always one step ahead of her as she scoured her lab for any sign of her missing mentor.

 

Yon-Rogg had tried to meditate, but it had not come easy. He had returned to his room with his body aching from their brief encounter. He had grown weak he realized, both mentally and physically, in the Koonarian pit. He had meditated for the first long days while his body adjusted to the pains of starvation. As his stomach feasted on the hidden fats and muscles to survive he had grown listless and no longer sought the comfort of routine and regiment. He had taken refuge instead in the more desperate animal caverns of his mind.

 

Vers thought she could compare him to the Skrulls and get inside his head. He knew her games; if she thought she could trick softness out of him she was wrong. If he was going to be alone he would not abandon what it was that made him strong; the rituals and rigours of Kree tradition. If his bloodmate could continue to refuse him then he would not be the one lost to the abyss.

 

He awoke with the day cycles of the ship whirring to life; the temperature of the cabins warming and the lights trying to simulate sun.   
He could not centre himself anymore than he had the night cycle before. Physical exhaustion would be the route he took. He would practice forms and move his body until he shook too much to go on. He would exorcise the pit from him. He would shape himself to contain his desires once more.

 

Carol awoke to the sounds of grunting and thumping. Her room was warm and awash with the buzzing light of simulated mid day. She had not meant to sleep so long. She lay on her side listening to the thumping. Perhaps Yon-Rogg was trying to punch his way out of the ship. She got out of bed as the light began to pulse behind her eyelids black red and the loud humming began to feel like it was inside her head. Damn day cycle.

 

She showered and dressed quickly. The sounds of Yon-Rogg thumping away were comforting that she knew he was far away from her, but they were also maddeningly repetitive. By the time she reached the galley she couldn't take it anymore. She reached for stereo she'd rescued from Maria's attic. While her and Maria didn't always agree on what constituted a hit, they both agreed volume was the key to enjoyment. She turned the worn out cassette on high blast and went about trying to find breakfast.

 

Yon-Rogg was pushing through the pain of another drill. His muscles screamed against the repetition. He was almost there, he thought, almost to the blissful plateau where he would be numb and centred. Where his mind would have the laser focus it needed to reclaim his warrior birth right.

 

Possibly the worst crash of sound he had ever heard began throbbing from inside the belly of the ship. It seemed Vers was awake. He would know no peace then.

 

His arms and legs were jelly anyway. He was more focused than he had been in months.

 

Carol was feeling the chorus harder than she ever had. The repetition, the low wailing of the electric guitar and rough as nails vocals pushing the soft diaphragm of the speaker to its limit. She felt alive, she felt like she could take on the world. And even possibly handle the mess their fight had made of her cupboards. She was rocking her body along to the sound and scrubbing the metal face of a plate when there was a disgusted click and the music cut out. Carol spun on her heel and faced Yon-Rogg. He had snuck up on her and now she found herself caught between the counter and the solid wall of him. His fingers pressing down the button of her stereo spitting the tape out mid play.

 

"Hey you'll break it" Carol jumped seeing him so close.

 

"Don't you think it lacks foresight to leave yourself open to attack with a prisoner on board?" His voice was cool and pedantic. It was familiar, this control.

 

He was sweating, it glowed on his skin and she could smell the salty metallic sting in the air. It made her tongue push to the roof of her mouth as she fought against the thought of what he would taste like.

 

"So you admit you are my prisoner?" She asked turning back to the dishes. He didn't answer but she thought she heard him laugh.

 

He set a bowl of water on the table with its smelted chain tentacles. He watched her thinking of the tentative peace which had descended over the ship. Their fight galvanizing them into a sort of unspoken truce. Her hair was damp and small drops of water were marking her shirt. She looked clean, rested and new. He thought of their first day on Hala. The first day she had been fully awake. Today seemed like that day.

 

He placed a small vial next the bowl. He had carried it with him, concealed in a small compartment of his armour, since his first day on Starforce. It had been tersely handed to him by his father the night before and they had never spoken about it. It was an unspoken agreement between warriors to carry a small vial of this tincture. It was ancient and ran as deep in the Kree heritage as any of their beliefs. He carried it so that if he was facing certain death he could annoint himself in order to meet his ancestors. He never thought, never even considered he would one day open it willingly.

 

Carefully he slid the stopper from the vial. The moment it was loosened the aroma began to fill his sense. It warmed him and soothed an ache in him he had not known he'd had. He heard the clinking of dishes slow and stop. His gut tightened knowing it called to her as well.

 

Carol's hands slowed as something dark and familiar filled the air. She let the dish she held go with a rolling clatter and turned to look at Yon-Rogg. He held in his hand a small crystalline vial. Smaller than her pinky finger. He was pouring the contents into a shallow bowl of water, carefully stirring with two of his fingers. Making slow deliberate circles along the edge of the bowl.

 

Carol could not stop her feet as she shuffled foreward. His eyes glanced up at her for a moment seeing her fixation on his work. He began speaking in a low voice. They were words that came from deep within him as if he had been hearing them his whole life.

 

"The Kree built themselves up from slaves. They rose and conquered those who would destroy them. My father's father's father have been fighting this war. Not just to dominate, but to break the chains of those that would enslave another. Since the beginning of the Kree they have used these herbs to annoint their warriors and prepare their bodies for their ancestors."

 

Vers' eyes watched as he mixed the water and he spoke the words his father said to him many many years ago.

 

"Why do I know it?" Her voice cracked. He smiled at the memory. She may hate him for it, but he had held their earliest moments close for a long time.

 

"When you were reborn on Hala, when you joined our fight, I prepared you in the same way warriors have been prepared for generations. Before you woke up you had already absorbed our heritage, you were as deep a part of us as my blood was part of you."

 

Vers swallowed. She shook her head against the ancestral memory that was calling to Yon-Rogg's blood in her.

 

"I was at your mercy. You had no right, Yon, to make that choice for me."

 

"Vers, your place is by my side. My enemies, the enemies of the Kree, are the ones you should be fighting against. Not me. Stop fighting me."

 

Vers scoffed at him. She was shaking, he saw, with barely contained rage, but her eyes stayed transfixed on the dark water in the bowl.

 

"A millenia of war is no reason to keep fighting. You say the Kree wish break the bonds of slavery, what did they make me? You lied to me about everything. Turned me into a weapon against a people who only wanted a home-"

 

"I won't apologize. I won't say I am sorry for something I don't regret. I won't regret giving you the strength to survive, giving you a life that will outlast any weak Terran body. You are not a blunt instrument of war, you are a blade and I will allow no other man to wield you."

 

"I will let no other man wield me. Never again Yon. I will never ever allow my mind to become clouded behind lies and deception again."

 

"I lied so you could see the truth. To ease your pain so you could accept your new home world. Do not try and tell me you haven't seen for yourself that you can never go back to C 53."

 

He stopped stirring and submerged a cloth into the water. Carol felt a pain in her chest. She did not know how to digest that Yon-Rogg was both her saviour and her captor. She had never known, from the moment all was exposed, how to let the two truths live in harmony.

 

"And you can never go back to Hala. Neither one of us can go back."

 

They fell into silence, two ideologies that were in such balance that they could only be locked against each other. To every argument each had an answer, a truth that could not be ignored but also could not unseat the other. Carol wondered how it would all end. 

 

Yon pulled his shirt over his head, fighting against the damp that would hold it to his skin. He had opened the vial, he would complete the ritual regardless of if he could spark Vers' understanding. As the shirt peeled away he heard the sharp intake of breath. Damn it. He had forgotten.

 

"What happened to you?" Carol could hear the quake in her own voice.

 

Yon-Rogg's torso was lean with muscle, sunken slightly against the malnourishment from Koonar, but it was the white scars that crossed his body that shook Carol. They crossed his shoulders and wrapped around his abdomen in razor thin lines. She moved closer to him, the aroma was thick in the air. It made her warm and made her feel like she could feel his heart beat crossing the space between them. She reached her hand out to touch one on his shoulder. He caught her hand and gave her a warning look.

 

"Don't touch it, Vers."

 

"They hurt you-" she had not pictured this of the Koonarians.

 

"You hurt me"

 

"Yon -"

 

"I returned to Hala alone. I spent days suspended in the simulation. They searchedn every corner of my mind." He had been aware the whole time he was kneeling wrapped in wires, feeling them burn into his skin as the Supreme Intelligence scrubbed him for any sign of betrayal, turning over in front of him the minutiae of his failure.

 

"I didn't-" Carol's mouth was a thin line. It hurt to think he blamed her for the SI's torture, but she hadn't even supposed that it would happen. She curled her fingers around his hand their palms pressing together in the air between them.

 

"The SI wears your face. Every time they needed to extract information from me it would be you coercing me."

 

Carol knew it was not easy for him to admit who the Supremor showed to him. She didn't know what to say. That fact was a confession in itself even if it was tied to the painful realization it had been a simulation of her that had burnt these lines into his skin.

 

He dropped her hand and returned to the cloth in the bowl. His head bowed and his mouth set. There was a small muscle in his jaw that ticked. She closed the distance between them and pressed her forehead against a star of lines on his shoulder.

 

"Yon-Rogg" She murmured into his hot skin.

 

Vers, he was certain, was trying to undo him. She sounded hollowed out by hurt, leaning into him light fingers tracing the scars on his side. He didn't want her pity. He caught her hand and pulled her around in front of him.

 

"If you are going to be here, be useful" he said the words intimate and heavy between them.

 

He put the damp cloth in her hands and pushed it below his ear where his pulse was strong. He covered her hand with his and pulled it across the firm muscles and tendons in his neck, small rivers of scented water escaping through their fingers and down his body. Vers' throat bobbed and she kept her eyes wary on his face. Good, he thought.

 

He released her hand and she continued on her own. Her hands were firm as his had been, no more light soft touches.

 

Carol continued to wash him, she stepped around to his back and pressed the cloth between is shoulder blades. The water ran down his body and she felt hypnotized by the droplets of water sliding over flesh and muscle. He rolled his shoulders forward pressing into her hand, his muscles moving as he did. The Yon-Rogg she knew on Hala was built with such purpose. She had thought he had been lost to Koonar, but she had awoken to find pieces of him back in place. His cool, his focus, his discipline. It made forgotten parts of herself ache.

 

She finished his back and came front of him again. She placed the cloth in its bowl and moved to unclasp the fall of his pants. He caught her hands again his grip so hard his thumbs dug into the tendons of her hand. She could see the tense muscles of his jaw as he gritted his teeth.

 

"Isn't this what comes next?" Carol asked with an arched eyebrow.

 

Yon-Rogg pulled her by her hands hard against him so their knees knocked together. He dropped her his hands coming up quick to grip behind her neck. His fingers laced so she could not pull away and his thumbs pinning her jaw so she had no where to look but his gold eyes.

 

He kissed her, pinning her backwards against the table. Carol moved her hands behind her thoughtlessly reaching to move the bowl and protect the water. Yon-Rogg grunted, as if annoyed by her squirming. He jerked her slightly, kissing her more firmly than before. 

 

The table was biting into the back of Carol's legs with such force she sat back onto it just to relieve the pressure. Yon-Rogg's body followed her so that he was pushing her backwards. She fought against him, her shellshocked brain finally able to talk to her extremities. Her knees locked against his insistent thighs, her hands mirroring his grip so their bodies were grappling against each other.  
As the heat rose between them the smell of the Kree herb grew stronger and darker. Yon's mouth becoming even more insistent and searching. He shoved her away as suddenly as he had grabbed her. In her surprise she broke her hold to balance herself against the table. She felt the cold metal bowl shudder beside her, but now she couldn't bring herself to care.  
Yon grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and yanked it over her head. Even the warmth of day cycle was not enough to stop her shivering as the air hit her skin.  
Yon-Rogg pounced forward pinning his hands on either side of her, his thighs straining against the resistance of her legs.

 

He licked a long stripe across her neck and Carol felt her elbows buckle and her body shudder.

 

"What are you doing?" She panted in his ear.

 

"The herb is bitter. I wanted to know what you tasted like before" he pushed her loose limbed body backwards so she was lying back looking up at him. He held the soaking cloth above her sternum, small drops of water falling on her hot skin. "Say yes to me."

 

His voice rumbled over her, making her want to squeeze her knees together as a flood of arousal rushed through her. She met the thick muscles of his thigh and he responded by leaning farther over her his eyes staring into her. Her mind tumbled through the cloud of desire to what he was asking of her. He wanted to touch her as she had touched him. He wanted her to say yes when she was awake and when she was strong. He wanted her to accept his heritage and his ancient mission. Her body screamed at her to say yes, to have him wash her with the water that ran over his fingers and down his arm, puddling above her navel. And then devour her.

 

The choice was made for her as the silencing bang of a space jump rocked the ship, tipping the metal bowl to the floor. The ship shuddered around them as they felt the clangs of a mechanical grapple lock around them. They were being pulled into the bowels of a larger ship.

 

Yon-Rogg sprang away from her, his eyes immediately sweeping the entrance points. Carol tugged on her shirt, feeling the cold water soak into the fabric.

 

The echoing sound of the airlock door being forced opened filled the ship.

 

They waited the tension of the room building and building. There were foot steps echoing towards them. Carol fought back the desire to ignite the power inside her. Negotiate first, surprise attack second.

 

Three Skrull guards poured into the galley, blasters drawn. Two pointed at Yon-Rogg, one at her. One guard forced Yon-Rogg to his knees while the other kept his blaster trained. Calm, even footsteps proceeded their captor's entrance.

 

"What the hell, Talos?" Carol demanded. Her hands raised in surrender.

 

"You didn't answer my message, Sweets. I thought I would come see why."

 

"What message?" Both of them looked at Yon-Rogg who just rolled his eyes.

 

"Call it father's intuition, but I thought you might need help." He waved the guard away from Carol. He dropped his blaster and moved to more easily cover Yon-Rogg. Carol dropped her hands.

 

"I was doing fine. I am going to find Onigaia." Carol insisted.

 

Talos looked from the shirtless Yon-Rogg to her in her soaked t-shirt, her lips bitten, the circle of his fingers marking her throat.

 

"Don't get me wrong, Sweets. I trust you, but I know when something's not right. Answer me one question. Does he-" Talos pointed at Yon-Rogg "know where Onigaia is?"

 

Yon-Rogg shot daggers at both her and Talos, the guard pushing the blaster into his neck. Carol bit her lip. She wanted to scream at both of them

 

"Yes" she croaked out. The words fighting passed her throat.

 

"Take him" Talos barked and the guards wrestled Yon to his feet. He snarled at them and shot a furious look at her.

 

"Vers" was all he snapped out before he disappeared out the galley, it echoed slighly against the ship and made cold shame run down her spine.

 

"Come on board, love. You've been alone too long" Talos said, walking to her and giving her shoulders a comforting squeeze.

 

Carol nodded, her eyes locked where Yon had disappeared.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dad's House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double posting in a Saturday! I am a machine!
> 
> This would have been earlier but I have been obsessively reading GrotesqueEnchantment and Elisha_Boltagon's fics. 
> 
> Also anyone worried this fic is never going to stray into the bonezone I just want to assure you I am just making sure you _really_ want it first.

Talos could smell the herb on her, Carol was certain of it. She sat in the small room waiting for him to come back feeling the damp of her t shirt dry and the awkward electricity in her nerve endings die.

 

She wanted to forget that her and Yon-Rogg had essentially been caught on the kitchen table by an armed guard. If they hadn't who knows what would have happened, she had wanted to say yes to him. Even if she knew, logically, that he was asking for something she couldn't or wouldn't promise. Her allegiance to the Kree. Not necessarily to the SI or to the Empire, but to something deeper. An ancient ancestral heritage that she couldn't even begin to understand.

 

She did not know what he offered in return for such an allegiance. Other than consummation, she shuddered against the coldness of the word. It hadn't felt cold in the moment. It had felt powerful and natural. Like a dam breaking and water finding its level. The desire had pulled her under like a current. Now they were here. Or she was here.

 

Yon-Rogg was somewhere else in the ship and it was eating away at Carol that she had been the one to betray him. Why couldn't he have just told her where Onigaia was?

 

The door opened and Talos came in. He hovered by the door watching her carefully. He had considered sending his wife in to her first, so they could speak as women. He wasn't sure what it was that he had walked in on, but the air had smelt raw and virile. It was a scent that was familiar to any mating species. On top of that he had gained other insights.

_  
_

_The Kree was strapped upside down and they were perusing his memories._

_"Go back farther, we don't need to see this" Talos barked, his technician had awkwardly scrolled backwards and forwards through the events immediately preceding their arrival three times. Carol sitting up and being pushed back her eyes heavy with desire over and over again._

_They whirred backwards faster the colours flashing across the screen. They stopped on a flushed, nearly naked Carol tubes and monitors feeding into her body. The Kree was bent over her hovering above her skin. Feasting on her with an impentrable look in his eyes._

_"For the sake of Skrullos, one more time and I will think you are doing it on purpose" Talos berated the technichian. The colours flashed again._

_"No! Stop there. We're close." He thought he saw Mar-Vell's face._

Talos now felt over burdened by knowledge. He felt neglectful too, of the woman who had promised to aid them. She had, he feared, been meddled with as a result of helping them find a new home world. He knew when the world was pulled out from under you, over and over, it was easy to fall into the darkness. To allow yourself to be molded by those who hurt you. He wondered how many people made the mistake of thinking she was more impenetrable than she was.

The woman before him was strong, but she was not a fortress. She was an ocean. She hid so much beneath her surface.

"Talos?"

He realized he had been standing there awkwardly for a few moments.

 

He coughed into the silence. Maybe his wife would be better at this.

 

"Did you hurt him?" Her voice was flat in the empty space.

 

Talos sat across from her. Their knees felt too close to each other in the small room.

"We gave him the option to just tell us the truth" he started. It was the truth he argued to himself. They had paused for a brief moment, but with a Kree at their mercy his men had been over zealous.

 

"And?"

 

"He refused"

 

"So you took it from him?" Her voice lacked accusation, but he felt it anyway, in her flatness.

 

"I don't always have the luxury of kindness, my people are fighting a war. Our numbers dwindle and we are spread across the galaxy. Hiding our faces to the point we forget who we are."

 

"I know, Talos" still cold. Still flat. He wanted her to understand he wasn't a monster. He wasn't a man that relished in the blood of the fallen. He wanted her to know the years he had spent hunkered away from his wife and child had eroded more patience in him than one man should have in a lifetime.

 

"Do you? Would you choose us if you had to?"

 

"I chose you once already, didn't I?"

 

"Then why worry for him? He has done nothing but wage war against us."

 

"I worry for both of you. I worry that taking you to Onigaia won't bring peace. That you mean to continue the war from beneath the Kree's nose. I worry that there isn't an option where we survive, where we come out the other side whole."

 

"I have seen inside his mind. Watched his memories. I wonder what you know and what you don't know."

 

Carol felt sick. Did Talos really trust her so little? Their voices had ticked up as they spoke. He looked frustrated. And tired. They were both so tired.

"I don't know" Carol admitted. Her voice thick in her throat "I don't know what is memory, or fiction. I just don't-"

 

On instinct Talos knelt in front of her. He took her hands in his and looked at her with so much warmth. She was, he realized, as lost as his own people but so much more alone.

 

"It will get sorted out. You will always have a home among the Skrulls. And you will always have a home on Earth. Wherever you go you will walk among friends. Don't be alone anymore."

 

"I want to see him" she murmured. Talos nodded. He thought of the brief picture of her covered in sensors and tubes. One tube a brilliant blue. He feared there was more between them than he thought. Curse the Kree and their blood fanaticism.

 

"You will see him soon. See Soren and the others first. They have missed you."

 

She nodded pliantly her mind elsewhere.

 

Yon-Rogg came to in a cell. He groaned against the thin bunk, his eyes felt like stars were exploding behind them and he was hesitant to move. He lay there feeling drained and picked apart, but not knowing why.

 

He knew he felt incomplete. His mind fumbled through the clouded hours to his last clear memory. He had been so certain Vers was going to give in to him. If he had had any doubt about the strength of her Kree blood her reaction to the washing ritual had erased them. It called to her stronger than he expected. He could live off the image of water puddling on her stomach, all while she looked up at him with pleading eyes, for a long time.

 

If they hadn't have been interrupted he would have dipped his fingers into it and swirled in around her navel before pulling it in a thick stripe over her stomach, along her sternum to her tart, wet mouth. Rubbed it along her lip before she sucked it off his fingers. If he closed his eyes he could imagine the hot slick pressure of her mouth sucking it off him. Of pressing them deep into the thick muscle of her tongue. Letting her throat fight back against the invasion.

 

The muscles low in his stomach clenched as he vividly pictured exploring her. Finding her limits and going beyond them.

 

"Am I interrupting something?"

 

Yon-Rogg sat up, his head fighting back against the sudden movement, rushing blood causing his vision to blacken down to a small pinhole.

 

"What makes you say that?" He growled at the intrusion. It was bad enough they had him in here, but now they came to mock him.

 

"I don't know. It just looked like you were -" the green skulled bastard sucked his teeth at him suggestively "having a moment."

 

"I assume you got everything you needed from me?"

 

The Skrull laughed his mocking laugh.

 

"Yes sir, we did, all that and more."

 

"Then why are you here?"

 

"Because she is asking for you" Yon-Rogg gave him his full attention. Vers was asking for him. Vers was still here.

 

"Bring me to her. Now" he commanded his voice dark.

 

"Now hold on. Before you see her, you and I-" he gestured a long pointed finger between them "have to come to an understanding."

 

"What could you and I possibly-"

 

"Her. We have to come to understanding about her and what she knows."

 

Yon-Rogg's face became a mask.

 

"Does she know Mar-Vell is alive?"

 

"I have told her."

 

"Did she believe you?"

 

"No."

 

The Skrull had the audacity to laugh at him again. He had a warm look in his eyes that Yon-Rogg longed to pluck out.

 

"I am glad she has some sense. Does she know whose blood she received on Hala?"

 

"Of course" Yon-Rogg snarled at him.

 

"Does she know what it means for a Kree to give his blood?"

 

Yon-Rogg was silent under the Skrull's scrutiny.

 

"You have until we reach Onigaia to tell her the truth. After that, what happens is beyond any of our control."

 

The Skrull held up his hands and began to walk away from the bars. Yon-Rogg pursued him as far as he could.

 

"And why would a Skrull do that for a Kree?"

 

"Because," he stopped and looked at Yon-Rogg with the weight of a father's stare. "She needs to hear it from you. For her own peace of mind it has to be you. So let me be clear, Kree; I am doing this for her and only her. If she had asked for you to be jettisoned out of the airlock I would not have hesitated for a moment."

 

The Skrull turned his back on Yon-Rogg and he felt the bars of his cell tighten around him as he waited to see Vers again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can't get no satisfaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like... How do we do this? Do I change the rating or do we just make all the impressionable teens promise they will skip this chapter?
> 
> Hey impressionable teens! Space blood pacts should always be consensual. No glove no love!
> 
> Unrelated but if you are also writing Yonvers fics and you have been following this one please shout yourselves out in the comments. I am so bad at reading when I a mid writing a fic, but I want to cheer you guys on ❤❤
> 
> On a pervier note if the below really does it for you give me a 😉, cause I rarely write scenes like this and I want to know if it worked.

Carol was ushered into the open centre channel of the ship, interconnected arteries broke off but this high vaulted room was obviously the heart.

 

There weren't many Skrulls aboard the ship relative to its size. She knew Talos had bartered and searched for the largest one he could find that still had cloaking capabilities. They had worked for endless cycles trying to get its nav and propulsion systems operational. The fact they successfully made a jump to her location was a feat in itself. She didn't know if they would dare make another one. She wondered how far they were from Onigaia. If they would make any part of the journey in this ship. She knew they would need to get out of the Helgentar system if they wanted to avoid detection by the Kree.

 

She wandered through the chamber guilt soaking into her. They had all jumped into unknown danger for her and all she had done for them was rescue the man who led wave after wave of attack on their people. A man that she still ached to see.

 

She heard the scrape of shoes on metal moments before she felt the impact of a small body running full tilt into her. Instinctively Carol's arms wrapped around the girl tightly hugging her waist. She remembered this style of greeting from Monica. Not clearly, but in this warm faraway part of her, she remembered how precious it felt to have Monica fling herself against her. Knowing that she was trusted and loved and missed.

 

Soren followed behind, when she reached her daughter loving hands peeled her away from Carol's middle. She wanted to protest, to say it was fine they could stay like this a little longer, but Carol also knew she was on the edge of tears. She didn't want to scare her. She mustered a smile for the little girl.

 

Soren embraced her too, those confident firm hands rubbing small circles on her back. Carol's eyes stung more. Soren's hug was full of comfort, understanding and concern. Carol thought she deserved none of these, but she gave into it anyway. Letting herself curl tighter into her arms. Soren pressed her cheek against Carol's, her skin radiated empathy. A mystery of the Skrull anatomy, their shapeshifting was almost a deep cellular level empathy. Carol heard and felt the dry sob in her throat as if she was floating somewhere above her body.

 

They walked along the main artery. Every once in awhile Skrulls would stop what they were doing and come to see them. Talos was right. She had been alone too long.

 

He was watching her walk up and down the centre room. She had his daughter's hand hanging off her own. His wife pointed to something and her nose crinkled with a laugh. He didn't want to interrupt them. He wanted her to stay between his girls. Feeling the healing vibration the mother and daughter shared. Physiological empathy. Leeching some of the loneliness from her body and letting it drift through the radiation shields into the vastness of the galaxy.

 

If she could just expel the Kree from her body they could all heal her together. Talos knew that couldn't happen. He knew what it was to have your mate bonded to your very cells. It was her misfortune that she had had no say in the matter. No chance at saving herself from sweet addicting sorrow of destinies at odds with one another.

 

Carol caught sight of Talos watching them from a doorway. She did not know how long he had been there but she thought she might burn a hole through him with her laser stare. He acknowledged her with a slight nod of his head and pushed away from the wall he had been leaning on. His wife broke out into a wide smile when she saw him walking towards him. He reached for her as soon as they met, sliding a loving hand along her jaw. Leaning forward to press their foreheads together. Something inside Carol clenched like a heady mix of envy and desire. She wanted someone like that. Someone she could pour her love into, who would make her stronger 

 

Talos released his wife and patted his trilling daughter on her head. He motioned for Carol to follow. She left Soren and her daughter as if she was under a spell. She felt Soren squeeze her arm affectionately before she drifted too far.

 

Talos and her did not talk on the walk. She felt concern pouring off of him, like some talisman of fatherly love was clenched in his hand and his did not know how to give it to her. She understood. She was asking a lot for him to trust her.

 

At last they paused outside one of the doors. He paused at the lock, fiddling with it for a moment before motioning for her to place her hand on the pad.

 

"This will be your room. Only your hand will open it" he looked at her with eyes that spoke to everything he was not saying. "No one can be in here without your permission. Its yours for as long as we journey together."

 

Carol nodded feeling a well of emotions, worrying her lip against the tears.

 

"We will bring him here, then?" It was an open question. One she knew she could say 'no' to. That with a simple shake of her head Talos would make Yon-Rogg disappear from her life. She felt lighter as she nodded 'yes'.

 

She had a window. Talos left her in the hall and she opened the door to a galaxy. Her breath caught as she walked towards it. There was nothing really to see, but the yawning emptiness was glorious on its own. Milk blue stars shone lightyears away, dull like pearls. It was the emptiness that had always called to Carol, even in the atmosphere of Earth, nothing to stop her going farther, further, faster.

 

She was still staring into it when she heard the low beep of the door. She placed her hand on the window, in the small square that lit up in front of her. The thick shield was cold against her hand as she heard the woosh of the door. She saw him vaguely mirrored in the glass, the void swirling around him.

 

The door slid open and his guards pushed him in. The door hissed closed behind him and for a moment in the dim light all he could see was the galaxy in front of him. As his eyes adjusted he saw her silhouetted against the darkness her hand against the shield.

 

He waited for her. Standing in the dim his hands in front of him, restraints long since removed, but he still felt the weight of them.

 

"Did they hurt you?" She asked at last. She stared beyond the shield. Yon-Rogg wanted to shake her.

 

"No." 

 

She nodded. He wondered if she would send him away now. If she had sated her guilt and he would be dismissed. He wondered if he would go.

 

"Is that all you wanted to know?" He asked as the silence stretched longer.

 

"Is there anything else you would tell me?" She turned to him at last, her arms curled around herself.

 

This was it. His chance to tell her everything. Plead his case against a mountain of damming evidence. He found he had no words.

 

"That's what I thought." Her voice was flat and she turned back to the shield. She rested her head against the cool surface. He hated how distant and cold she could be. He should take pride in it. All the years about not letting her emotions rule her, but now he wanted her to crash down around him. He started to take a step towards her. "Just stay there. You can move when I tell you to."

 

He knelt where he stood. His hands open, palms upward. The meditation stance of a Kree warrior. She would know it, know he was preparing his body to be there for as long as it took.

 

Carol could see Yon-Rogg sink to his knees in the reflection of the shield. She watched the controlled descent of his body in the cold glass. He was covered again. He looked less wild than he had in the galley. She turned to watch him, although his gold eyes were turned towards his palms she could feel the intensity of his focus was entirely on her. As if he was willing her to step forward into a cunningly baited trap.

 

She complied stepping away from the comfort of the void.

 

"What happened on the ship?" She asked, his mouth twitched despite his composure.

 

"When a man and a woman-" his voice was so deep and intimate small tingles ran down her neck imagining his voice in her ear.

 

"That's not the part I meant" she interrupted him and finally he looked up at her. There was such a hunger in his eyes that she longed for him to look away again. "What do you want from me?"

 

"I want what is mine" he didn't move a muscle but Carol felt her knees weaken as if he had touched her in the most intimate way possible.

 

"I am not yours" it was probably stupid of her but she walked closer to him. To stare him down, to show she wasn't afraid.

 

Like a viper he struck, hands wrapping around her thigh, fingers lacing behind so she could not easily step away. He pulled her protesting body so she closed the gap between them in two stumbling steps. He pressed his nose into her t-shirt just above her navel. He breathed in deeply.

 

"You smell like mine." He murmured into the softness of her stomach. The vibration of his words travelled right down to between her thighs. As her off balance body curled around his shoulders she clenched her thighs around his hand.

 

"That's not what I meant, Yon" she hated how breathless she sounded. She tried to push away from his shoulders, but his grip around her thigh tightened jerking her more off her feet so she was bent even further around his kneeling body. The thumb between her thighs began making circles against the seam of her jeans. Her words came out in little puffs of effort. "Let me go and explain what's going on

 

"I'd rather show you" he answered teeth finding the thick fabric of her waistband. He tugged on it experimentally. Carol could feel rather than hear his words. His chin pressed hard just above the place all her sensations were feeding into.

 

She felt on the verge of falling into something deep, dark and inescapable so she did the only thing she could think of and kneed him hard in the jaw.

 

He released her in surprise, the grunt coming out of him more animal than human. She stumbled back trying to regain her footing. Falling into an unsteady fighting stance.

 

"Use your words" she admonished, her mind clearing as cool air was allowed to flow between them.

 

The look he gave her could best be described as glee. The look of a predator that had spotted prey. He sprung forward at her grabbing her middle so he could wedge his shoulder into her hip and knock her jellied knees easily out from beneath her. Bringing her hard against the cabin floor

 

She moaned as her back hit the metal hard. Her legs were trapped beneath him and he was pushing her shoulders into the floor.

 

"I can do both, Vers"

 

She struggled against him, but the friction just made her feel hotter. She relaxed under him. Ready to talk her way out.

 

"If you don't know just admit it" she groaned out as he experimentally ground his aching flesh into her. "Say 'Carol I don't know why we can't stay the hell away from each other'"

 

"I do know."

 

"Then tell me."

 

"You were dying. Your weak Terran biology was being ripped apart by the power of the core." He paused in his exploration of her so that he could look into her eyes as he told the story of her rebirth. "We couldn't let such power disappear into the universe. Not with a war to win. We knew how to save one of our own kind but your body was alien to us. Our only hope was to transfuse blood into you, let it mutate your cells so we could begin to salvage the power that was burning you alive."

 

He released her shoulders so he could kneel over her body. Vers rose up on her elbows so she could see into his eyes better.

 

"I remember the transfusion."

 

"And you remember it was my blood."

 

"Yes. What does this have to do with anything?"

 

"To the Kree blood is sacred." He pressed two fingers into the soft dip between her collar bones, her breath caught as he trapped the air in her throat. After a moment he dragged his fingers down the hard line of her sternum. He wondered is she even realized how her back arched into him. "To spill blood is to possess, to lose blood is to fail. To ask another Kree for their blood - it's just not done. Blood then must be offered."

 

"It was a medical procedure, Yon. They mutated my cells. You feel responsible for me. I get it."

 

He wanted to drive his fist through the metal floor. He wanted the sweet release of pain to make up for all the words his tongue couldn't find the shape of.

 

"Then you will accept a practical demonstration?" Carol blinked up at him.

 

"I mean I have never heard it called that before-" he leaned forward and placed his mouth over the defined vein in her neck. He sucked against the firm flesh and her mind went white with a mix of pleasure and pain. His hand caught the back of her neck and he pulled her up against him so he could continue kiss along her jaw firmly and insistently. She fought against her slackened muscles so she could push herself up with him, slide out from under the pressure of his body. His one hand behind her head, his mouth found hers so he was pinning her against him. His other hand followed the muscles in her leg, fingers searching her for something. At last slipping his hand inside her boot he found the blade tucked there. An old Earth habit. He grunted at his success. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her animal brain she felt the knife loosen. She struggled away from him.

 

"What are you doing?" She asked pulling her mouth from him with a wet pop.

 

"Photon energy coursing through you, superior strength and speed, accelerated healing-" he pressed he forehead into her chest. His words moving through her, the heat of his breath moving over the thin fabric of her t shirt, "and you are worried what I might do with a knife?"

 

"Keywords being 'you' and 'knife'" she let her head roll back humming with pleasure as he bit into the swell of her breast through her shirt.

 

"Practical demonstration" he punctuated each syllable with small bites over her neck and chin. Ending at her mouth again.

 

He rested back on his knees and took her hand in his. Palm up he placed the knife just below the webbing of her fingers. He drew the blade through her skin, blood welling into her palm. He let go of her and did the same to himself. He slid the knife away from them and with his non-bloodied hand drew her palm against his mouth. His tongue darted across the wound before he sucked the blood deep into his mouth. It stung and she hissed against him, but she didn't pull her hand away from his greedy mouth. He dropped her hand and sucked the blood from his own palm mixing them in his mouth.

 

He grabbed her jaw hard, holding her in place blood dripping down her neck from the healing slice on his hand. He pushed his mouth against her spitting into her the burning hot mix of their blood and saliva. He rubbed his thumb over her sensitive throat as her eyes went wide.

 

"Swallow it" he growled at her, her eyes locked with his as his thumb coaxed the movement from her throat.

 

It slid hot and slick down her throat as she obediently swallowed. It tasted of heat and metal. She could feel it inside her as hot and intimate as a tongue. Yon-Rogg's eyes flashed dark amber at her as he felt her throat move. Her heart was beating so hard she could feel it connecting with the wall of muscle in her chest, squeezing against the thick heat of her body. She felt his heart beating too, everywhere their bodies connected was like a throbbing live wire.

 

He got to his feet pulling her up and against him so their bodies fit into each other. He slid a hand over the small of her back pushing her hips into him. He gently rubbed his cheek against her, whispering in her ear "good girl".

 

The unexpected gentleness and praise made her knees weak as she sagged against him; nothing but heat and skin rubbed raw by too many clothes. A calm had fallen over them. His touches so hard before were now feather light, everywhere his fingers moved she felt her nerves shimmer. She shivered against him, his new tenderness an unexpected assault on her senses.

 

"Now what?" She panted against him. His slow rhythmic strokes over her spine making her shudder and press herself against him.

 

"I am waiting" he said, his fingers finding the hem of her t shirt. Tracing the skin on her stomach until her muscles clenched with desire.

 

"For what?" She nearly cried into his shoulder, balanced on this alien precipice where everything felt like both too much and not enough.

 

"For you to admit it" he said kneeling in front of her swaying body, pushing her t shirt up so his palms were flat against her abdomen, his nose circling around the spot that drew his constant attention, brushing his lips over it before gripping her ribs and pulling her against his insistent tongue.

 

"God" she cried her voice cracked and reedy "just tell me what to admit"

 

She felt his lips smile against her skin before he quickly darted his tongue into her navel.

 

"That it's different when it's me" he stood, tugging off her shirt. Lifting her easily from the ground so she could wrap shaking legs around him. "That it's never felt this good before."

 

She laughed as he began to walk into the darkness of the cabin.

 

"Men" she muttered into the shell of his ear, her fingers carding through his hair. "Maybe it always feels this good."

 

He spun them grunting and pressing her back into the cold shield. She hissed as her heated skin touched it, sending her nerves into overdrive. Her eyes rolling back with the pleasure of it.

 

"Don't play with me Vers" he muttered between her breasts pressing wet kisses against her sternum. "I will be the one teaching you the Kree way of it."

 

"How do you know I didn't learn on Hala?" She asked squeezing him hard with her legs until he groaned into the thoroughly wetted flesh of her breasts. He lifted them away from the window again and walked the few steps to the bed. He changed his grip so he could lower her against the cold sheets. She kept her limbs tight around him so he couldn't retreat.

 

"How do you know there weren't hundreds before you?" She repeated the question again.

 

"Because" he whispered in her ear, his voice low, his hips making a slow circle pushing her into the mattress. "I would have slaughtered any man who touched you. And they all knew it."

 

She moaned into a fresh wave of desire, something primitive and base about his unspoken claim over her. It should piss her off, instead something deep inside her answered back.

"Good, kill them"

 

"See Vers, you are more Kree than you think." He set about removing her clothes. Pulling off her boots, stripping the jeans from her legs. "Whether you know it or not you have the same desires."

 

"Are you saying I am just like all the other girls?" She asked trapping his hand between her knees as he ran his hand down her thigh.

 

"I am saying I know how to satisfy you" he freed his hand and tugged his shirt over his head. He discarded it on the floor. He took her hand and pressed the palm of her hand over the thick ridge of him. "And I will teach you how to satisfy me"

 

Vers pushed herself to the edge of the bed, reaching for the closure of his pants. She slipped her hand beneath the fabric, running a possessive hand over the length of him.

 

"And what about all the other women? Do I get to kill them too?" She was mocking him, teasing him but he groaned under the movement of her hand and the image of Vers- he couldn't finish the thought or he would spill himself.

 

He stilled her hand and pushed her onto her back again. He followed her bracing himself above her.

 

"I would welcome the destruction of anyone who tried to part us." He turned her so her back was pushing into him, her bottom pressed into his thighs, curved perfectly into each other. His one arm locked around her shoulders pressing into her throat. His other hand was poised ready on her stomach. He nuzzled into her neck so he could speak directly in her ear, sending ripples of static down her spine to where their bodies joined. "Now, are you ready for your first lesson?"

 

His hand spread lower, more possessive over her belly. She nodded her teeth catching her lip as she held in a whimper. She was breathlessly ready, but for the first time in a long time she felt precious and safe.

 

It seemed to Carol that there was a lot of overlap between sex and training. She mused that maybe it was because it was Yon-Rogg. She lay naked on her stomach, her arms wrapped around a pillow so she could look at him. His eyes were closed as he lay on his back, naked. One finger tracing meaningless shapes along her shoulder blade.

 

"What?" He asked, not opening his eyes. He could feel her eyes on him.

 

"I am just thinking" she said.

 

"Should I be worried?" She laughed as she rolled on her side away from his meandering fingers, taking the pillow with her so she felt the cold comfort of it against her skin. 

 

"I was just thinking my first day of training on Hala had a similar theme"

 

He laughed opening his eyes to look at her. He ran the backs of his fingers over her jaw. She sighed.

 

"Which was?"

 

"Limits exist only in your mind" she intoned in his gruff way of speaking. "When you encounter a limit you must push yourself passed it."

 

"It's a good lesson" he nodded, pulling the pillow from her hold. He slid her cooling body against the warmth of him. He pressed a reverent kiss to her temple. "Aren't you glad we expanded your limits?"

 

She laughed at him, rolling in his arms to warm her back against the wall of his body.

 

"Men on every planet are the same; all ego." She looked at him over her shoulder. "Even the Kree."

 

"The Kree have much to be proud of" he agreed. And she groaned into the mattress.

 

"The three rules are now in effect" she said holding up her three fingers over her shoulder. Yon-Rogg grabbed her wrist and slowly sucked each finger into his mouth before taking her hand between her legs. His hand joined hers.

 

He was relaxed as he plucked low moans and throaty breaths out of her, her body rolled over his arm to press further into the mattress. How he had restrained himself for those seven long years now seemed impossible. Now he knew the heat of her taking him over and over, he felt sated and grounded. He would do what he had to do on Onigaia to protect her.

 

He groaned into the slick flesh of her back as she ground herself harder into his hand, his focus narrowed to the woman in his arms, thoughts of what was to come far away. He rolled her onto her stomach and lifted her insistent hips over him. She moaned in frustration as he freed his hand from her. He turned them to low cries as he pushed himself slowly into her. She was so strong, she moved so powerfully with him. She took him well, he thought as he felt the heat build between them hot and slick making their movements desperate. When at last he let himself sag forward running a grateful hand up and down her spine he could only think that he would raze any empire that tried to part them.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half true

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little later than I planned, but earlier than my usual update time.
> 
> Elisha_Boltagon suggested the endearments you see later in the chapter.
> 
> I love all your comments. They make me so happy. And I look forward to cheering on the everyone else writing in Yonvers!
> 
> Hope this was worth the wait. ❤❤

Talos stood behind his technician, he was watching the colours whirl passed as they returned to the beginning again. He had watched this sequence over and over, but its meaning still eluded him.

 

Yon-Rogg was in a giant hall, the sand coloured marble and thin metallic inlay spoke to its Kree origins. He stood at one end and watched as a massive white capsule surrounded on either side by armed guards approached. Despite its size the egg floated seamlessly as if it was hovering above the ground. They stopped a few feet from him and Yon-Rogg stepped down from a small dias towards them. He placed a fleeting, reverent hand on the smooth white surface of the egg. Its was so shiny Yon-Rogg's face was briefly reflected, warped over the shell.

 

He turned to a young guard, in Yon-Rogg's memory the guard had luminous yellow green eyes, he affectionately squeezed his shoulders.

"All has been prepared for your arrival on Onigaia" Yon-Rogg's voice echoed somewhere above and behind the memory. The young man lifted his arm and a small holograph had appeared before them.

 

This was where the recording froze. Talos had stopped here, this was their destination.

 

Who was travelling there was a mystery. Or what, Talos thought, what could be so precious they hid it far from Hala surrounded by armed guards? At first, he had told himself it wasn't important. They knew Onigaia was a place of pleasure. The planet paradise for one. Now as they made their slow journey out of the Helgentar system he thought perhaps he should have pushed the Kree harder. As it stood, he must rely that he would tell everything to Carol. A gamble he wasn't sure would pay off.

 

* * *

 

Carol woke up to the feeling of knuckles brushing along her ribs then following the curve of her waist. She was lying on her side, arms wrapped around a pillow, cheek nuzzled into the cool surface. She didn't know how long she had been asleep. They had broken apart a sweaty tangle of limbs and she had rolled to the edge of the bed feeling the cool air wash over her. She was vaguely aware of Yon-Rogg as she drifted off, but she was so sated and tired she couldn't bring herself to move farther away from him.

 

She closed her eyes again, she wondered if she had longer to sleep. Moving felt impossible like all her limbs had been replaced by static. The hand stopped on her hip the fingers stretching into the swell of flesh there.

 

"Sometimes it feels like you are planning to eat me" Carol muttered as Yon-Rogg's hand traced the thick muscle of her thigh. She felt his low laugh telegraphing through the mattress.

 

"Is that what you think about after hours of mating?"

 

She rolled onto her stomach so she could look at him. Her eyes drifted down his naked body.

 

"Hours?" Her eyebrows went up.

 

"An extended spate of mating" he corrected.

 

"A spree of mating?" She laughed into her pillow.

 

"A torrent of mating" was his riposte. His hand resumed its stroking as Carol laughed.

 

"You need to stop calling it mating."

 

"Is there a better word for it?" He asked shifting body so he could kiss her.

 

"I will teach you a few" Carol smiled against his mouth as he pressed kiss after kiss to her mouth, cheek and chin. "Besides what are you thinking about that is so impressive?"

 

Yon-Rogg pulled her against him, running two fingers over her spine. Every where his fingers touched felt like small trails of lightning, she hummed.

 

"I was thinking about paradise" he said matter of factly.

 

"Oh no. I am out." Carol began to push away from him. She laughed as he wrapped a heavy arm around her pulling her back. "I won't lie here and listen to Kree poetry. I need a shower. I am leaving"

 

"Not what I meant" he rolled her under him. "But now you mention it."

 

He began moving down her body, one hand firmly planted on her sternum holding her down. His thumb stroking her breast. He paused to dip his tongue in her navel again. Carol hissed above him, her knees instinctively twitching around him.

 

"You can do that later" she panted against his clever mouth. "Finish what you were saying first."

 

"Why can't I do both?" He ran his tongue over the thin skin covering her hip bone.

 

"For starters, I don't have ears down there." She tried to wedge her hand between her sensitive skin and his mouth. He responded by fucking his tongue between her fingers. She moaned, but continued trying to escape him.

 

"You don't?" He laughed against her wriggling hips. "An oversight of Terran biology."

 

Giving in to her insistence he locked his arm around her knee and pulled hard. She gave a yelp of surprise as she slid quickly off the bed, hands gripping ineffectively at the bedding. She landed on her ass, knees bent, and Yon-Rogg kneeling in front of her. He kissed her hard on the mouth.

 

"Better?" He asked slipping his hand between her spread legs. She leaned her head back lip caught between her teeth. "You asked me if I knew what Onigaia is, remember?"

 

Vers nodded her head against the rumpled bedcovers.

 

"Onigaia is paradise." He moved his finger inside her. It was an unusual sensation, tight and shallow. He wanted to learn her body from every angle now that she had accepted him.

 

Vers swallowed her moan as she tried to form a question, desire began to cloud her thoughts. He found he enjoyed watching her fight against pleasure as much as watching her give into it.

 

"And there is only one Kree in paradise?" She managed, her breath hitching as he withdrew from her body.

 

"There is only one Kree who does not leave paradise." He stuck his finger in his mouth. He sucked her off his skin before leaning in to kiss her.

 

* * *

 

Talos dismissed his technician and sat alone in the darkened room. The only source of light was the dim glow of the screen. He wanted to be alone with this section of memory.

 

The aircraft falling from the sky, the pursuit as he watched the dirt fan from the impact, and the stalking of his prey. He had rewound it again and again. Each time he felt his anger grow. He had only watched the bolt strike Mar-Vell once. His heart could not take it. Seeing two women he admired be in such chaos; watching Carol, so resilient, so adaptable thrown back.

 

He could never accept the Kree's devotion to her. He had seen inside his head. Talos could understand desire. He could even understand being driven to great lengths by conviction, but the two existed in such stark opposites in the Kree. He rewound to the beginning. The tracking system locking on the dark shape of Mar-Vell's ship.

 

There was a noise behind him. He paused the playback turning sharply in the dark. He relaxed when he recognized the silhouette of his wife in the semi-darkness.

 

"Inamorata, you should be in bed."

 

"You expect me to sleep without you?" She walked softly to him. "Haven't I spent enough nights alone?"

 

His wife was graceful and soft-spoken. To Talos she was the epitome of Skrullos; refined, empathetic, and educated. She curled herself into his lap. She radiated calm and love two emotions he was struggling to find within himself at the moment. She cradled his face in her hands and pressed her forehead to his, he tried to pull away from her but she presisted. He didn't want any of his rage to touch her beautiful mind, the mind that flowed so seamlessly with his daughter's.

 

"I don't want to keep you awake" he growled. His arms came up to wrap around her thin body. She was too thin, he thought. He wanted her to be round, plump and safe on a planet they could call their own.

 

"You think there is anywhere on this ship I cannot feel you, Inamorto?" She smiled at him. She ran soothing hands over his temples and behind his ears. "I knew you were alive all these years, because I could feel you as clearly as if you were beside me."

 

He breathed in her aura. He felt the warm rush. She was so addictive. She made him strong, gave him something to fight for.

* * *

 

Yon-Rogg kissed her as if he was trying to take some secret from her. His tongue tasted of sleep and earth. And her. His hands found her waist and he pulled them up together. Carol looked at him confused as her unsteady limbs held her for the first time since they began their encounter. He lifted her easily over his shoulder and she yelped in surprise.

 

"Where are you going?" She could see nothing but the web of white scars in his back and the moving pattern of the cabin floor.

 

"You said you wanted a shower."

 

"I planned on getting myself there."

 

"You can barely stand. You're clearly overwhelmed" he jostled her to keep her balanced despite her squirming.

 

She laughed and the air snapped with the firm smacks she gave wherever she could reach.

 

"Put me down."

 

He set her on her feet in the shower, blocking her in with his body. He reached behind her and turned the water on. It was ice cold. She gave a small shriek jumping like a cat.

 

"What are you doing?" She stammered the water pouring over her skin making her shiver. A dull ache started wherever the spray hit. She tried to turn the tap to warm, but he blocked her hand. He crowded her in farther to the shower. Her back was trapped against a cold wall and Yon-Rogg tensed as the icy spray wet his hair and body.

 

"Now Vers," he said pulling her against his blessedly warm body. She curled into him against the onslaught. "It is time for your second lesson."

 

"And what's that?" She shivered, her skin felt so raw it hurt.

 

"How much pleasure can be found in discomfort" he grinned, dropping slowly to his knees in front of her.

 

* * *

 

Carol slipped out while Yon-Rogg slept. He began to stir, but she managed to talk her way out of bed and leaving him there. She had to talk to Talos, to learn the next stages of their plan. She couldn't face doing that with Yon-Rogg hovering.

 

She wasn't sure where on the ship he would be found or even what point of the day cycle they were in. She felt lost in the artificial life cycle of the ship. She could not imagine how the Skrulls endured it, from one metal behemouth to another with no firm soil beneath their feet and no sun to mark their days.

 

Eventually she was directed to the communications centre. When she arrived the room was darkened except for the glow of a screen. Carol hesitated before walking farther into the room. She thought she felt someone in the darkness. As she approached the screen a hand slid off the arm of the chair knocking the playback into action. Carol realized two figures were curled together in the large command chair. Recognizing Talos and his wife she went to back out of the room, but the motion on the screen caught her eye.

 

A dark spot was fixed in the targeting sites, familiar hands were flipping switches. Impact. It was a jet she realized as the back engine blew. Her craft. This was her and Mar-Vell being shot down. She began to breath heavy as panic gripped her. One of the figures stirred.

 

Soren was awoken suddenly by a shudder of pain in the room. Her first thought was her daughter, but as the room came into focus she realized her mistake. She scrambled out of the chair disturbing Talos. She moved as quick as possible towards the figure slowly crumbling to the floor. Talos came awake swearing as he saw the figures on the screen.

 

"Shit, shit, shit" he reached for the controls of the playback.

 

* * *

 

Yon-Rogg woke slowly, something in his far subconscious was nagging at him. There was a weight astride him. He struggled to wake, his body lethargic and weighted down. He managed to open his eyes enough to see the figure above him. Vers.

 

Vers was straddling him. Small trills of awareness rippled through him. Open your eyes a voice commanded from the back of his mind. Something was wrong. He blinked against the fog and focused his eyes.

 

"You're not, Vers" he said to the figure astride him.

 

"That's what I keep telling you."

 

"No, I mean you aren't her. How did you get in here?" There was a DNA lock outside. Of course, that was meaningless on a ship full of Skrulls.

 

He tried to move, to attack, but his limbs were leaden.

 

"What have you done to me?" He croaked, even his voice was frozen.

 

"More like what have you been doing, Commander?" Vers' eyebrows lifted suggestively as she straddled him.

 

"Supremor?" Yon-Rogg didn't understand. "How can you be here?"

 

"I hope you didn't take my exile personally, Commander." The simulation ran a possessive hand over his chest. "I am glad you didn't fail me."

 

"Fail you?"

 

"After all the time, all the resources, did you think I would just let our weapon go? I had to step in and mend what had been broken."

 

"You knew she would go to Koonar? How could you have known?"

 

"It was a logical place. And if she never did, well it wasn't like you had been a prize soldier recently."

 

"Why?"

 

"For the glory of the Kree, of course. You will fail your little infiltration attempt on Onigaia and then you will both come back to Hala. To begin again. That's what you want, isn't it Commander?"

 

"And what's in it for me?"

 

The simulation laughed. It was so hollow to him now.

 

"Is the glory of our race no longer enough? How about reinstatement, unfettered access to your plaything-" the simulation paused to push up their shirt admiring the small scars and freckles Yon-Rogg had spent the last few hours memorizing. "And given the new clarity of my simulation I would guess that you will have even greater control of her this time. Not to mention the irradication of the Skrulls. The better question, Commander, is what is in it for you to refuse?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conflict

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear we will eventually get to Onigaia. At this rate you are gonna be like "DH what is plot? You know what a 'plot' is right?"
> 
> And to you I say "bold to assume I know what I am doing"
> 
> Also it is 6:23 AM on the Prairie so this the edit you are getting. I reserve the right to fix it later :-P
> 
> It has been so great reading everyone's fics. You are all so talented it makes me sick ❤

The floor seemed to rush up to meet Carol, but she supposed it would make more sense if it was her sinking towards it. Soren was hurrying to her arms already outstretched. 

 

"He didn't lie. I thought he was lying." Soren crouched in front of Carol, one hand on her forehead the other gripping her wrist.

 

"Let her go, inamorta," Talos came behind his wife pulling her hands away. Soren had tears streaming down her face. "You can't feel this pain for her."

 

Soren nodded, but she didn't move far. Carol's mind was racing to understand what she had seen. Her memories were unclear. She had known Yon-Rogg was there, she had thought she understood. To see it through his eyes, to see the blast hit Carol Danvers, to see both her and Mar-Vell gathered like rag dolls. Mar-Vell whose eyes roved around her, unseeing in pain. Mar-Vell who seemed to be very much alive.

 

"Where is she? We need to find her." Carol's voice cracked. Her mentor, the woman who had trusted her, the woman who wanted to save lives. She was somewhere and Carol didn't know where. The pain was swallowing her up from the inside.

 

"We will find her. I promise we will." Talos' voice was gruff.

 

"Did you know?" It was an accusation as much as it was a plea.

 

"Yes."

 

Carol tried to turn away from him. She wanted to curl farther into herself. Soren ignored Talos and wrapped her arms around Carol. She felt her pain ease, but it still burned low inside her belly.

 

"How long have you known?"

 

"Since we interrogated the Kree."

 

"Why didn't you tell me?"

 

"I was a fool" Talos' voice cracked. He was angry at himself. At his judgement. "I thought he might be a better man. That he would make it all clear to you."

 

"Make what clear to me?"

 

"That Mar-Vell is alive. That you and he have been fused."

 

"Fused?" She sobbed. She felt sick. She couldn't remember why she trusted him. What had he told her to earn her trust? She had just wanted to. She had wanted to feel whatever it was he made her feel. It was all meaningless, she realized coldly, without trust.

 

"You share blood"

 

They did. Even now Yon-Rogg was in her veins. She wanted to vomit. She nodded.

 

"I can't explain it. Skrulls have no equivalent. To the Kree that gives you influence over each other. You have felt it?"

 

She nodded, so it wasn't real. Whatever they had was not real. It was a by-product of something that was forced upon her. She felt herself burning up. Her skin, wherever he touched it, burned with shame. And where hadn't he touched?

 

Talos was shaking with rage. He had begun pacing. He looked ready to charge to her room.

 

"I will kill him. Carol, look at me-" he crouched in front of her. Grabbing her arms so she was forced to focus on him. "I will kill him."

 

"Talos." His wife pulled his hands from Carol. He stood up and resumed his pacing.

 

"I just want to find Mar-Vell" her voice was hard. Resolved.

 

"Stay here. Just stay here." Talos left the room. And Soren wrapped her arms firmly around Carol.

 

Talos flew through the ship in a rage. When he reached her door he didn't pause to weigh his options. He felt his cells bristle and form. He placed her hand on the pad and the door opened.

 

The Kree was standing in the middle of a rumpled room. His eyes looked as wild as Talos felt. The door closed behind him. The Kree was undressed to the waist. The room wreaked of sweat and mating. Talos stared him down, he was seething.

 

"How dare you wear her face" the Kree growled at him. His eyes glanced around for a weapon. Seeing none he charged at Talos.

 

Talos moved quickly springing towards him. They met in the middle of the room, Talos was knocked to the floor. The impact shocked him back to his senses and he resumed his true form. He knocked the Kree off him. He rolled across the room. Landing on his back.

 

"I told you to tell her everything" Talos stalked towards him, hackles raised. "I gave you a chance to make it right."

 

"Vers may not see the truth of it yet, but she knows everything she needs to know."

 

The Kree made to stand, something gripped in his hand, Talos aimed a hard kick to his chest. He rolled backwards on impact. The Kree growled.

 

"You are of no use to us now. I will throw you off this ship"

 

The Kree got to his feet, flicking open a silver blade. He gave a battle cry before charging towards Talos.

 

There was a woosh of the door and a sudden burst of light. A blast caught the Kree in the chest firing him against the wall.

 

"Stop it" Carol walked into her room hands blazing. She turned to Talos extinguishing her hands. "Never wear my face without my permission."

 

He looked chastened, but he shot Yon-Rogg a filthy look. Yon-Rogg was finding his footing. His hand cradled his chest were the bolt it. His face was an unreadable mask.

 

"Leave, Talos" Carol commanded. Her eyes were locked with Yon-Rogg's. She felt Talos hesitate, but he acquiesced. Soren was standing stricken in the doorway.

 

Carol heard the door close. They were alone again.

 

"I told you the truth, Vers."

 

"Are you saying it is my fault for not believing you? There is the truth and then there is the absence of a lie. Not lying that Mar-Vell is alive is not the same as telling me how she lived and where she is."

 

"Your weak terran body took my blood. It made you strong enough to contain the energy of the core, but it never made you stronger than me or faster." Yon-Rogg stalked closer to her. He rolled his shoulders against the pain his chest. The red blossoming bruise was already fading away. "Do you truly believe a single bolt from a blaster would be enough to kill her?"

 

"I don't know what I believe anymore."

 

Yon-Rogg's blood was pumping from the fight. It rushed through his ears and he could feel it throbbing beneath the skin. He had awoken in a cold sweat after the SI had invaded his dreams. His first thought had been to seek out Vers. For a moment he had not wished for his previous life or the destruction of his old enemies. He wanted only what they had begun and he wanted it without the influence of the SI. That changed when the Skrull had burst in the room wearing his bloodmate's face. And when it had been him to receive the force of Vers' attack.

 

He was being romantic doubting the plans of the Supremor. Misguided. Their bond would be strengthened by the Empire. Vers could continue to grow stronger on Hala. They had a future. By being constantly at odds with the Empire there would be nowhere that was safe for them. Nowhere to grow their line, secure their legacy.

 

He walked closer to her.

 

"You can trust this. You can trust me." He reached for her but she stepped away from him. His face darkened.

 

"I don't, Yon. Even when you tell the truth I think it is a lie."

 

She was rejecting him. He blinked at the realization. She was still treating all of this, him, as a choice.

 

"You can't walk away from this, Vers. It will hollow you out. Ask yourself haven't you felt empty for the last year? Do you think it will be easier now you have accepted all of me?"

 

"How would you know what I feel?"

 

Carol tried not to think of the growing emptiness inside her. On Hala, it had not been like this. She had felt like she had lost something, but it had never felt like it had since leaving last year. She refused to believe that was because of Yon-Rogg.

 

She ignored the small voice inside her that whispered to her. She had felt different with him. She had laughed. She had slept. No, she refused, it was not because of Yon-Rogg.

 

"Because I have felt it since the Skrulls took you on Torfa" he reached for her again this time she let him. He never wanted to let go. "I would have torn apart the galaxy to return you to my side."

 

He felt so good. She had felt rage, betrayed, and violated. She still felt all these things, but when he held her they felt less. They felt further away as if they happened to someone else.

 

"This isn't real, Yon. It can't be real because I didn't choose it."

 

"We didn't have the luxury of waiting" he shook her slightly and she pushed out of his grasp. "And what would you have chosen Vers? Given the option of life or death. Not just life as you knew it, but a longer life. A life where you had more strength in a single finger than in your whole Terran body. Where you would heal at a rate undreamed of by your planet's medicine."

 

Vers stood away from him. She was curled in on herself and it made him sick to look at her. He wanted to comfort her as much as he wanted to wound her.

 

"Do you think I would have chosen a feeble backwards Terran? That I mated myself to something so weak and unknown lightly? If it had failed I would have given the possession of my eternal soul to a supernova. If I survived your death I would have spent the rest of my long life carved out. You are not the only victim of fate in this."

 

Carol felt she was being pulled in all directions. Whenever he spoke, whenever he touched her she felt conflicted. She could not go back. She could not answer him what she would have chosen. She knew she wanted space. She wanted distance to think.

 

"Fine, Yon. Neither one of us was free in our choices. Earn it from me now. Come to Onigaia with me. If it is all we hope it is capture it with me, for the Skrulls. Prove to me this is bigger than the war. Show me that it is me you have chosen. Not Vers. Not the weapon of the Kree. Me, Carol Danvers or Captain Marvel, whatever name I choose for myself."

 

Yon-Rogg felt cold. He knew what they would find on Onigaia. He knew the planet's purpose. This was his moment he realized, to betray the Kree, to tell their secrets. Choosing her began in this instant.

 

He said nothing and she left the room.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear at one point we are going to get off this damn ship (talos' ship not Yonvers obvs) and something will happen in a gd chapter for once.
> 
> Today is not that day! Blame my brain
> 
> Everyone should check out Elisha_Boltagon's new fic. Where stuff happens. Unlike this one.  
> [ **Blood Legacy**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18513391) (2677 words) by [**Elisha_Boltagon**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisha_Boltagon)  
> 

Carol couldn't stand to look at Yon-Rogg anymore. He preached control and the glory of the Kree whenever he drew breath. He was always talking and now, now when she needed his words he was silent. Just another way they were at odds with each other. Carol had come to realize she wanted love and strength. She wanted what Talos had. And she was looking for it in the wrong place.

 

Yon-Rogg wanted sex.

 

Fine, he had had it. He had had her in more ways and more times in the last handful of hours than anyone before him. At the time it had filled her, pressed all of her broken pieces back together again. Now he stood silently in front of her stripped to the waist and looking at her with his strange pale eyes. Deep inside her something moaned for him. Told her to press herself against his skin and let him take more from her. She stamped it down. She needed space. She needed distance and she needed it now.

 

She walked away from him. She left the rumpled bed, churned up from their bodies moving against each other. She left the smell of them thick in the air. And she left the look in his eyes that made her want to stay.

 

Talos was waiting for her in the hall. When she walked out the door he stood up. His mouth opened.

 

"Forgive m-"

 

"Walk and talk" Carol interrupted. She was retreating and she couldn't pause. "Tell me how long to Onigaia."

 

Talos fell into quick pace beside her. His apology forgotten. Good, she wasn't ready to speak her forgiveness out loud.

 

"We will travel another 12 hours outside Helgentar in this ship. Then take a smaller ship to the fourth moon of Nadiir. We will be able to observe Onigaia from there and come up with a plan of attack." His head was bowed. "We have been slow to travel. This ship isn't capable of another leap so soon."

 

Carol nodded. She felt unworthy of the journey Talos had made to come get her.

 

"I will wait in my ship."

 

"And the Kree?"

 

"If he leaves this room kill him"

 

* * *

 

Yon-Rogg felt the air chill as soon as Vers left. He was alone he realized with the SI hiding somewhere in the walls. His skin ached where months ago the wires had burnt into him. It was a foreign sensation the way his heart clenched in his chest and his stomach fell. It was fear, he thought, he was terrified of the SI.

 

Even more so he was terrified of being alone with the SI.

 

* * *

 

Talos and her parted ways before the hangar. He knew she had to walk this last stretch alone. It seemed like days rather than hours since Talos had come for her. Her stomach clenched at the idea of walking into her ship again. Even her home had been invaded with memories of Yon-Rogg.

 

As she approached her ship she saw the marks from the grapple scraped in the side and the damaged doors of the airlock. She laughed to herself as she ran a loving a hand over its hull.

 

"I guess I am staying with Talos a little bit longer. You look like hell, girl" she whispered to the ship. It was a flygirl habit, talking to her craft as if it could hear her.

 

She dropped the gang plank and walked on board. It smelled musty compared to the large ship it sat inside. She would need to run the air interchange while they waited. A thumping noise echoed down the gullet of the ship. Someone was on board.

 

* * *

 

It had been a mistake not to tell her. As the dread set in around him, Yon-Rogg realized he was being a fool to face this alone. A commander knew when to restrategize. A commander knew how to use the tools at their disposal. He grabbed his shirt from among the carnage of their mating. His eyes watched the panel walls as if they might contain vipers. He stepped back quickly as he thought he heard the slithering sound of metal wires moving between the sheets. He pulled the shirt on fast and made a quick path to the door.

 

He had to find Vers.

 

Yon-Rogg pressed the button to open the door. He stopped short. The Skrull was leaning outside. Blaster resting casually across his thighs.

 

"Going somewhere?" He asked lazily, turning the weapon so it caught the light.

 

"What are you doing here?" Yon-Rogg kept his eyes on the Skrull's hands.

 

"She told me that if you left the room I was allowed to kill you. As you imagine, I am really hoping you fancy a walk."

 

Goddamn it Vers, she was running from him. He was a prisoner again.

 

"Tell me, Skrull. Where did you get this ship?"

 

"Why do you care, Kree?"

 

Yon-Rogg leaned in the doorway. He weighed his options. He needed information, but once he had Vers off ship, did he care what happened to the Skrulls? He didn't. So why warn them the SI was buried in their systems?

 

"No reason. I wonder why you would bother seeking a planet, when you could fit your small and huddled masses within this ship."

 

The Skrull growled, tensing away from the wall.

 

"Our children deserve to feel the sun upon their skin and the soil beneath their feet. Not to spend their life breathing recycled air hidden beneath a cloaking shield."

 

Yon-Rogg looked at the Skrull carefully. He spoke of children and sunshine rather than empires and glory. It was a decidedly Un-Kree way of being. What worried him was he was beginning to understand it.

 

"If you had any sense you would stay far away from Onigaia."

 

"Why? What will we find there?"

 

"Paradise."

 

"Then we shall take it for ourselves."

 

"I know nothing of your mythos, but to most Paradise belongs to the dead."

 

Yon-Rogg shut the door leaving Talos in the hall, blood pounding.

 

"Bastard."

 

* * *

 

Carol tried to calm herself. Who could be on board her ship? She was among friends. Still her hackles raised and she strode through tight metal halls with caution. She reached the galley and saw someone on their knees obscured by the table. Flames licked at the palms of Carol's hands while she tried to even her voice.

 

"Who's here?"

 

A green hand braced on the table and Soren's head quickly came into view.

 

"Soren" the flames went out and Carol felt she could breath. "What are you doing here?"

 

"I am sorry. I thought it would help if things were-" she brushed her hand over the metal links of the manacles. Her eyebrows raised. "Tidier. When you returned."

 

Carol rolled her lip between her teeth. She tried to smile but she felt her eyes watering. She was going to cry. This woman, this mother, who had raised a family in isolation, who had been without for so long, was on her knees in Carol's kitchen so she would feel better when she came back.

 

"Soren" she could say no more than that small plea as the tears began to roll. Soren walked over to her and wrapped her arms around Carol. She had never been held so often Carol thought as she sniffed back her tears. Soren was quiet, but she was always smiling, always reaching. Soren's hands rubbed soothing cirlcles into her back.

 

"I don't deserve-" Carol started but her words were cut off by Soren's gentle shushing.

 

"I have known you a long time, Carol Danvers" Soren said in her ear. "And I know exactly how much love you deserve."

 

Soren released her and Carol wiped the tears from her face.

 

"And I know how much I can trust you." Soren held up a drive between her fingers. Carol locked eyes with her. "Talos has lost many people. He carries each one with him. It makes him cautious. Too cautious sometimes."

 

"What is that?"

 

"The Kree's memories. Not all of them. The ones Talos saved." Soren paused for a moment searching for her next words. "I am used to relieving pain, but some pain can be good. Sometimes pain reminds us who we are."

 

Carol instinctively reached for drive, but Soren clenched it in her hand.

 

"Pain goes both ways. Sometimes it is hard to speak things aloud. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try"

 

Carol knew she was talking about Yon, it was a double meaning. Remember this was his past, that things that hurt her could also hurt him. It was also a warning not to forget he still owed Carol the truth. She nodded and Soren placed the drive in her hands. Soren briefly pressed her forehead to Carol's, bidding her farewell.

 

"Wait" Carol realized something. "You said you've known me a long time."

 

"I was not hiding on Mar-Vell's ship. I was her assistant, we worked side by side. We shared everything. I would listen as the test flights were conducted. And I was listening that last day, when without knowing who we were, what we were facing, you flew to us."

 

Carol was silent. She had no words because she had not considered all those years with her eyes turned towards the sky, the sky was looking back.

 

* * *

 

The slithering sound was growing louder. Yon-Rogg was sure of it. He was sure he could hear the SI moving in the walls. His skin was oversensitive, the smallest movement of air across him had him brushing his body off. He knew he should sleep. He would need his rest. He would also need food. He could not prepare himself properly as every sound made his skin crawl.

 

At last, overwrought and wild eyed he retreated to the shower. He sat with his back against the cold black tiles, damp soaking into his clothes, his body a tightly wound spring. He laughed at himself, disgusted, that he was cowering in a shower.

 

To think, scant hours before he had carried Vers in here. He had held her beneath the cold spray as she curled against him. He had pressed his mouth to her. The water running down her body flooding around his mouth making everything slicker. He had felt her shaking and shivering from his tongue and the cold. He had given her the lesson on his knees words spoken into the softness of her belly. Focus. Find the sensation you want and block out everything else. Rise above the discomfort and find pleasure. Cum, and I will turn the hot water on.

 

Now he was alone. Fighting to stay focused. To keep the SI from entering his mind again.

 

* * *

 

Carol sat in the captain's chair and plugged the drive into the console. She had already watch her own death she argued with herself, how bad could it be?

 

The shield flickered as she turned on the play back.

 

She watched the spin of colours. Small scraps would stop and flash. So quick she was never sure what she had seen. One paused for longer. It was her she realized. The orange sun of Hala was glinting against the window, throwing every detail and wisp of hair into sharp focus. She was looking out hand shielding her eyes. She glanced over and smiled. At Yon-Rogg, she must have been smiling at Yon. Her heart clenched. She didn't remember this small moment, but she remembered the feeling she could see on Vers' face. The trust. The glow that came from the moments when she was the centre of her mentor's attention. The image disappeared quickly, a small blip in Talos' searching.

 

More colours. If was dizzying to look at. It stopped. Her again. She was stripped down. She swallowed thinking of Talos watching this. She was strapped down, sensors and tubes protruding from her body. Beneath her skin lightning flickered. She looked small and translucent. And soft. She forgot how different her body was on Earth. Yon-Rogg was watching her then. Her body tensed in the memory. Pain creasing her forehead. Her mouth opened in a silent hissing moan. She saw Yon-Rogg's hand reach for her. He brushed one knuckle from her temple to her cheek. A small, reverent gesture. Her muscles relaxed a little. His fingers returned to her body. With two fingers he traced a glistening line down her sternum. He had prepared her, he said, before he gave her his blood. Had marked her with the Kree warrior herb. She realized she was watching the moment her destiny changed through his eyes.

 

The colours blurred again. She wanted to scream at the shield, demand to see more. To be shown the whole memory.

 

The next flash was one she didn't understand. They were in the temple of the Kree Supreme Intelligence and a guarded transport was floating white and luminous towards Yon-Rogg.

 

* * *

 

Yon-Rogg gasped for air as he was awoken by ice cold water falling on him. He had slept he realized with terror. Before him in a wide military stance was his father.

 

The SI had found him again.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Release

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear one day I will learn what a plot is.
> 
> But for the moment lets just have a break from the angst. Just let off some steam before shit gets real.
> 
> Also remember when I thought this would be 13 chapters? Haaaa.
> 
> Its after midnight here. I want to post but I also want to sleep. Lets agree to ignore spelling mistakes and weird sentences until tomorrow morning.

"You're not real" Yon-Rogg strained to get his words out. The cold water had forced the air from his lungs and made his body ache.

 

"I am real enough, boy" his father crouched over his legs leaning in close. He gripped Yon-Rogg's face forcing him to look into his own yellow eyes.

 

"You're not." Yon-Rogg closed his eyes against the nauseating static that was the simulation gripping him.

 

"You think you can disobey me?" Pain seared through Yon-Rogg. Starting where his spine met the cold wall and radiating out. Intense, muscle cramping pain that had no beginning or end. He felt his spine curve to it and his pathetic cry of pain echoing against the tiles. "You think you can escape me?"

 

"Vers did." He choked out between the waves of sensation.

 

It stopped and his father laughed at him. He held Yon-Rogg's face tenderly, in a way his father never had. His blue skin glowed in the dim light of the shower. The SI had no reflection in the water slicked tiles as Yon-Rogg tried to turn his head away.

 

"That's because she is stronger than you. She has powers you couldn't even begin to dream of. Isn't that why you want her so bad? She is what you could never be. She is more than your weak flesh could ever hope to achieve."

 

"No" Yon-Rogg struggled against the word as the SI forced him to look into his father's face. The great man his father was stared back at him. The wisdom. The discipline. The resentment of Yon-Rogg's inferiority. It all oozed from the simulation.

 

"She isn't here now, is she? You couldn't even keep her at your side. If you were really as strong as you thought you would have no trouble keeping her in her place. Even now you could be warming the flesh between her thighs, instead you are hiding from me like a rat."

 

"I will tell them" he managed through the iron grip on his jaw. "I will tell them and they will know you are here."

 

"And what will they do? Who will they blame? The Ravagers who sold them a decommissioned Kree ship or the Kree whose pathetic mind woke me up? Do you think the Terran will stop them when those blood thirsty Skrulls come for you? Do you think they will put you out of your misery with a blaster or will they do it with their bare hands?"

 

The SI's words were harsh. They had always spoken highly of him, inflated his ego with words of praise. First from his father and then from Vers. Praise and love he could never hope to achieve in reality. Had his devotion really been earned by such paltry offerings? Now he could see how meaningless it all was. When praise didn't work the AI merely had to find his deepest insecurities. He could see now it had all only been leverage.

 

This realization came too late, because now the SI had him and there was no one to come looking for him.

 

* * *

 

Carol turned off the drive. She had watched it over and over, but she still couldn't make sense of it. There was a reason Yon-Rogg would not tell her about Onigaia. A reason he didn't want her to go there. She had thought it was just his own hatred of the Skrulls. His desire to halt their mission, but this memory said so much more. There was something being hidden on Onigaia. What could it be?

 

She tried to remember through the haze of pleasure what they had spoke about. Her body yearned to disappear into the memory. The weight of him on her. His hot, clever mouth. She ached too, at how meaningless it was. While she had been glowing under his attention he had been conquering her. Think, she urged herself. Focus. She tried to extract the pearl of information he had given her while he devoured her senseless.

 

Only one Kree could not leave Onigaia. That's what he had said sucking her off his fingers. She focused on his voice, on the contents of his words. Filtering out the stretched feeling of having him shallowly moving inside her. The way he had pressed the taste of her back into her own mouth.

 

Only one Kree. There was only one Kree in Paradise. The wording was misleading if you didn't understand the Kree. Their reverence for exertion. Their desire to reach farther and farther. To others paradise would be an end. A final destination. A reward. To the Kree there were no rewards. One must push higher and further.

 

She was close she thought. Some truth she could glimpse from the corner of her eye, but not touch. She groaned back into the head rest. She rubbed a hand against her chest. Where seven years ago Yon-Rogg had marked her as a warrior. She felt an ache already. A hunger she had felt for a long time, but had been able to ignore because it had no name or shape. Now she knew it was loneliness.

 

She reached for the comm.

 

"Fancy a drink?" She typed.

 

There was a pause where she desparately reconsidered, perhaps he didn't want to see her. He might have better things to do.

 

The answer beeped through.

 

Carol smiled.

 

* * *

 

The door wooshed open. Carol stood in the doorway swamped in a leather jacket, a baseball cap pulled low on her head.

 

"How many hours before we change ships?" She asked her eyebrow's arching.

 

"Eight" Talos answered waving her into his quarters.

 

"So, only four drinks then?" She smiled walking passed him.

 

"My beloved says you have nothing on board, so I suppose libations are on me?"

 

"We'll call it even for the grapple that is still lodged in my rear fin?"

 

She heard Talos sigh behind her, but she could feel his smile too. His quarters were slightly larger than hers but not by much.

 

"Where's Soren?"

 

Talos nodded his head to the back of the cabin, "with the young one. She never rests easy before I leave."

 

"Sorry, I should-"

 

"Nonsense. It is better she sleeps. I hope our time of partings is almost at an end." He gestured for Carol to sit. He placed two glasses on the table and bottle of fetid looking liquid. "Mind you all I have is swill, but it does the trick"

 

He poured the brown liquid into the glasses. It smelt of dampened, rotting earth. It reminded her of the smell her bike would kick up on her first ride of the spring. She wrinkled her nose as Talos slid it to her.

 

"Feeling brave, Terran?"

 

Carol took a deep breath, catching it in the back of her throat so the smell didn't drift further into her nose. She poured the whole shot down her throat. It burned and she coughed against it, but it flooded her system.

 

"That is horrible." She panted as her stomach lurched, the liquid threatening to spill up her throat again.

 

"If you can keep it down you will find it very effective."

 

"Mmm do I want to know where you found it?"

 

Talos joined her at the table, he reached over to refill her glass.

 

"I believe this fine vintage was aboard the ship when I bought" he took a sip of it, his face contorting in disgust. He breathed slowly out of his mouth to stop from gagging. "It might be engine run off."

 

Carol looked at him for a moment, her throat flexing against the urge to vomit. She brought her three fingers to her lips, kissing the air.

"An excellent vintage of drainage."

 

Then she laughed, low and quiet so as not to wake his daughter. Talos joined her. She laughed so hard her belly ached.

 

"Now my sweet, sweet girl. You've come here, drank my drink, laughed at my joke, it's time for you to tell me what's on your mind."

 

Carol stopped laughing. She looked at her refilled glass. She drained it again. She shivered against the rotted taste. She scrunched her eyes closed tight and counted until the wave of nausea passed. She stuck her tongue out and pushed all the air out of her lungs to dispell the last ripples of revulsion.

 

"I want to talk about Paradise" she said. She tried to keep a straight face, but her lip twitched when Talos wrinkled his brow at her.

 

He tossed back the rest of his drink and hissed through his teeth as he refilled their glasses. Carol started laughing again and he joined her.

 

"You are the second person to bring that up to me today."

 

"Who was the first?"

 

"Who else? That pink bastard. Sorry" Talos held up his hand.

 

"What did Yon say about Paradise?"

 

"That it belongs to the dead."

 

Carol nodded, running her tongue along her teeth. Her mouth tasted awful, but her blood was warm. She felt her muscles relaxing. She tilted the glass watching the foamy bubbles skim along the surface.

 

"Such a Kree interpretation. On Earth it is a reward. To the Kree peace, beauty, comfort, these are not things you strive for. The Kree believe in struggling, pushing beyond their limits. To the Kree paradise is a prison."

 

Talos listened to her. His brow crinkled.

 

"They sure are a miserable set of cunts, aren't they?" He shot back his drink. Carol burst out laughing. She followed him, sputtering against her laughter and the foul taste. Talos joined her coughing and laughing.

 

"So Onigaia is a prison?"

 

"Sounds like."

 

"But a prison with sun and earth. Where we could build a stronghold against the Kree."

 

Talos refilled their glasses.

 

"For awhile."

 

"Sometimes awhile is all we get."

 

Carol took another shot. She didn't want to think about how impossible it all seemed.

 

"Ack You are poisoning me" she coughed against it.

 

"Yet you drink it willingly. Explains your taste in men" Talos tossed back his drink. Carol lit her fist giving him a warning look before breaking out into a deep shaking laugh. She leaned forward pressing her forehead to the cool of the table. Her cap fell off but she ignored it.

 

"You said only four?" Talos said holding the bottle up. Carol tapped the rim of her glass and Talos refilled it.

 

"Won't be the first time I've lied to myself."

 

"Or the last." Talos held his glass up to her in cheers, before tossing it back. Carol snickered into the table. She put her head on her arms looking at him.

 

"Tell me. How did you and Soren fall in love."

 

"No one wants to hear that old story." His eyes flickered to the darkened back rooms. His lips twitched. Carol smiled at him, making her eyes as big and round as possible. Talos took another shot. "Fine."

 

Carol clapped her hands softly in victory before settling her cheek back on her arms.

 

"I was on a reconnaissance mission on Xandar. Not like this obviously" he circled his face with his finger. "I was disguised as, if I do say so myself, the ugliest son of a bitch I have ever seen. This big fat delegate. He had a beard down to here."

 

Talos mimed a voluminous man with a scraggly beard. Carol muffled her giggle into her arms.

 

"So I am at this dinner or something. Some fancy place. Good for intell, but boring as hell. Across the room I saw this woman. She was plain. Nothing special about her. Except she smelled like, like heaven. Made my mouth water. Then she looked at me across the room as if she could feel me drooling over her. The moment I saw her eyes I knew she was the same as me."

 

Talos spoke mostly into his cup. Smiling to himself. Looking self conscious, but pleased. Carol felt warm all over.

 

* * *

 

Several hours and drinks passed. Talos was carried away by Soren. Soren had tried to convince her to stay, but she wanted her own bed. What could go wrong she asked, when she was among friends?

 

That was how Carol found herself walking along the winding hallways, one hand reached out to balance herself against the cool metal wall. She traced her way deeper into the ship farther from the hangar where she meant to go.

 

She stopped outside her cabin. A guard was stationed there. He looked at her up and down. She wobbled slightly under his gaze but she managed to straighten her shoulders and walk towards the lock.

 

"No one is allowed to enter." The guard interrupted as she was about to place her hand on the screen. She lolled her head around to look at him.

 

"This is my room"

 

"Yes but there is a Kree in there-"

 

"He is my prisoner. I will do with him what I will." She waved the guard off, trying to make her eyes focus on the panel in front of her. "You can go."

 

The guard hesitated for a moment. He weighed his options briefly and decided upon retreat.

 

Carol fell through the door laughing slightly.

 

She looked around at what seemed to be an empty room. She stumbled slightly as she turned in a slow circle. Her brain sluggishly tried to grasp why she couldn't see him.

 

Yon-Rogg woke up with a weight on his legs. His whole body protested. He had been here against the hard surface of the tile for many hours. His body wracked with pain from the SI. It was dark in the cabin, even more so in the small black tiled room. He could see the outline of a figure and feel the pressure on his legs of a crouching body.

 

"Why won't you leave me in peace?" His mouth was dry and his tongue felt thick. He was not sure how much time had passed.

 

"I've come to take you back, commander. We have a mission remember?" Vers' voice echoed in the little room. He scoffed. The SI only ever addressed him as his rank before. He could always tell when it was not really her. He slid his aching body higher up the wall further away from her.

 

"Don't call me that. Go away."

 

The simulation blinked at him.

 

"I thought you'd like that." She ran her hands up and down his chest before settling her hands on his shoulders. "And to see me again"

 

She fell more than leaned forward. Her hands pushed down on his shoulders bracing against him. His hands instinctively came up to catch her. She felt so real and warm under his fingers. Her mouth found his, it was blessedly wet and warm. Everything his mouth was not. He could not help licking into her, rolling his tongue over hers. She tasted bitter. Like pourly aged spirits. It was her, he realized. It hit him like a leaden weight. She had returned. He gripped her tighter. He ran his tongue over hers again. A small satisfied hum came from the back of her throat.

 

She pulled away. Just far enough to rest her spinning head against his shoulder. She felt very far away from her body at that moment. She could feel him looking down at her in confusion.

 

"I want to go to bed" she murmured into his shoulder. She looked up at him through vague bleary eyes. She laughed. "I don't remember why I am here. I am mad at you."

 

Yon-Rogg smiled at her. He should have realized earlier she was drunk. His poor beguiled bloodmate. She could deny it all she wanted, but when she was vulnerable she had wandered straight to him.

 

Vers pressed her palms against the wall and walked herself upwards with her hands, brushing passed him deliciously slow. She pushed away from the wall so she could stumble back away from him. He followed her with his stiff limbs. She walked on coltish legs into the main living space. Her eyes lighted on the bed and she groaned.

 

"Yes. Bed" she moaned making a move towards it. Yon-Rogg felt a bolt of panic. She couldn't stay here. They had to leave. They both needed to get out. He caught her by the waist.

 

"No. No. No." He tutted in her ear. Trying to sound soothing and convincing. "Not here. We should go back to the ship."

 

Vers spun in his arms, eyes bright.

 

"Yes the ship. That's why I am here. We have to get ready. For the mission."

 

"Yes. The mission." He nodded solemnly.

 

He let her grab his hand and drag him from his prison.

 

* * *

 

The walk had not been smooth, but they made it to the hangar and up the gang plank of the ship. He followed a few steps behind keeping a watchful eye on her.

 

She shucked off her jacket and let it fall heavy on the floor behind her. Her shoes were next. She stepped on the heel working her foot our of each heavy boot. She nearly tipped each time, but she managed to stay upright. She was leaving a small trail of wreckage as she stumbled the short walk to her quarters.

 

Yon-Rogg watched from the doorway as she crawled into her bed. She moaned contented into the pillow. He should leave. He started to walk away when he heard her.

 

"Stay"

 

It was so quiet he could barely hear it. He walked closer to her.

 

"What was that, Vers?"

 

"You heard me. Stay"

 

He sighed. He wasn't strong when it came to her. She was already drifting on the edge of sleep. She would never know if he stayed or left. He wanted to stay though.

 

* * *

 

Carol woke up curled up in her bed. She groaned against the harsh light of day cycle. She wrapped her head in her arms, trying to block out the brightness. She tried to think of the last thing she remembered. She stuck her tongue out against the horrible taste in her mouth. Talos. She remembered laughing with Talos.

 

She had to get ready. They must be nearing the time to change ships. To go to Onigaia. She stretched her arms wide. Releasing tense muscles. Grateful for accelerated healing. She may feel like garbage, but she felt like functional garbage.

 

Carol walked into the galley, stretching her arms over her head. She paused hands brushing the frame of the door. Yon-Rogg was sitting at the table fully suited in his armour. He had his arm resting on the table and was fiddling with the comm unit. He paused and looked up at her when she came in. They were locked in a staring contest. At last Carol found her voice.

 

"Who the hell let you out?" She growled. He quirked an eyebrow before going back to tinkering with his comm.

 

"You did."


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome wagon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally we are off the damn ship!
> 
> I never thought that would happen.
> 
> Hopefully y'all keep your Easter Eggs down with how saccharine this chapter is.
> 
> Remember no puking on the BloodTrain

Carol angrily knocked her throbbing head against the door jamb. Stupid drunk Carol. She was always getting into scrapes that Sober Carol had to solve. Even though he didn't move she could feel Yon's eyes on her. She groaned into the wall negotiating with herself. No more drinking when she had a prisoner. Especially not when said prisoner had seen her naked. She took a deep breath set her shoulders and looked at Yon.

 

"Well, you will have to leave now."

 

Yon scoffed closing the covering to his comm.

 

"No" Yon stood up and went to the cupboard. He rummaged around until he pulled out a soft fruit. He leaned against the counter inspecting it. "You should secure these better for travel."

 

Carol blinked at him.

 

"Oh a war criminal thinks I need a fruit basket. Great. Just great. What do you mean 'No'? I am telling you to get off my ship."

 

"What, so you can change your mind again?" He bit into the swollen flesh. Sucking where the juice would roll down his hand. Carol, to her annoyance, was watching his mouth.

 

"I won't change my mind." Carol said. Her mouth felt dry and she wanted to brush her teeth. Yon was leaning next to her toothbrush.

 

"You have, in the last two day cycles, changed your mind eight times."

 

"I have not. Now go. I have to get ready and I don't want you here."

 

Yon held up his hand and began counting off.  
"Yon, you are my prisoner. Fine, you can come but behave. You gave me up to the Skrulls. You seduced me -" Carol snorted loudly but Yon-Rogg continued unperturbed. "You locked me in your room. You broke me out of your room. You're kicking me off the ship."

 

"That is only seven times."

 

"And you're going to bring me along with you on this mission. Now brush your teeth and get your suit on. I won't stop you."

 

Carol shot daggers at Yon as she squeezed in beside him. He watched her, enjoying the intimacy of seeing such a small part of her day. They had survived in close quarters before, but now that he had opened her to his desires, it all seemed that much more intimate.

 

Carol was extra aware of his gaze on her, small sparks of static were tingling just below her ear. She tried not to think of the motion of the toothbrush in her mouth or the way she could feel the heat from his body a meager inch away from her. She spat and rinsed the sink.

 

"So, are you going to tell me?" He asked as she dropped her toothbrush in the sink.

 

"Tell you what?"

 

"What you were drinking last night that made you so - pliant?" She shot him death glares as she grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair. "I know it tasted like a peat bog."

 

"It tasted better than your bullshit, Yon" Carol growled as she looked around the room for her boots. Finally she checked under the chair. They were lined up with the laces tucked in. How drunk had she been that she reverted to her basic training days?

 

She charged from the room trying not to imagine how she had been last night. Yon-Rogg looked at her toothbrush discarded in the bowl of the sink.

 

"You're not going to leave it like that, are you?" He called after her. When he received no response he plucked it from the damp metal and placed it back in its holder.

 

* * *

 

Carol stalked up the gang plank of their new ship. The one that would allow them to invade Onigaia unnoticed. Talos was slumped in the Captain's chair two fingers dug into his temple. He glanced at Carol as she came aboard. He brought his fingers to his lips and kissed the air. Carol did the gesture back at him. Good to know they both felt like hell. Yon-Rogg followed her closely he watched the interaction between the two of them. Talos did a double take when he saw him duck into the command deck.

 

"Who the hell let you out?"

 

"She did."

 

"Oh really?" Carol kept her head down and began calibrating sensors. She could feel Talos' gaze on her. She looked at him out of the side of her eye. He rolled his eyes and started to prepare to taxi the craft out of the hangar. He muttered to himself. "Good to know half a bottle of Ravager's moonshine is all it takes to completely undermine our priorities."

 

Yon-Rogg strapped in behind them, looking at Vers' profile as she confidently readied the craft. He tried not to feel the rush of affection he felt knowing his woman could hold a half litre of Ravager swill without emptying her stomach onto his shoes.

 

When she had come for him he had been on the verge of collapse. The SI was not as strong inside the ship as it was on Hala, but it could still strategize and manipulate. His father had come to him again and again. Each time another layer of Yon-Rogg's arrogance was peeled away, burrowing closer and closer to the heartache he couldn't bear to look at. Perhaps he survived in Vers' rejection for so long because his sire's rejection formed his earliest memories.

He hated how easy the Supremor must have found it to conquer him on Hala. The rising recruit who everyone praised, but behind his back they all whispered wasn't it odd. A family as Blue as the flame from a copper star, all except the eldest. His father's disdain for him did not go unnoticed. His brother Xe-Rogg was the cherished one. Yon-Rogg cherished him as well. To protect the family name he had wrapped himself in as much honour and bloodshed as he could find across the Galaxy.

Vers he considered central to that honour. He was the man who wielded the greatest weapon on Hala. He had given his blood to the unknown Terran in order to gain her power for his own. He had thought in his deluded mind he would not fall beneath the same influence. That somehow he would be the moon pulling the tide of her ocean. Instead he was the helpless shore she crashed against.

He felt the force pulling back against the bench as he braced for their acceleration. No matter how many take offs or landings he made he still felt the dip in his stomach as the ground fell away below them.

He closed his eyes against the force and thought of Vers last night. Waking up to her. Thinking she was another hallucination. Realizing she had chased the SI away with her drunken stumbling.

He should have left her once she was in bed. There was something that hung over the night, like it did before any mission, that tonight could be the last night. So he had slid awkwardly beside her on the narrow cot. He jostled her slightly trying to gain purchase and she made a small noise of complaint. She threw an arm over him and nuzzled her head into his chest. One ear pressed to the wall of his chest listening to his heart. He realized he had never just held a woman while she slept before. Of course, Vers fought against the sleep that was claiming her.

* * *

 

"I haven't been this drunk since Earth." She murmured. She began humming drumming her fingers on his sternum.

"Were you this musical when you drank on Earth?"

"Mmm. Maria and I would sing that song. When we drank."

"I think I have heard enough Earth music to last me a lifetime." He said catching her hand so she would stop the soft thrumming of her fingers. It was hard enough having her pressed against him like this and not being able to touch her. The small sparks she made against his skin were not helping.

"Earth has the best music in the Galaxy. _Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow-_ " she broke off her singing into vague humming. Yon's chest moved up and down beneath her as he laughed. He affectionately kissed the tip of one finger.

"In the rest of the Galaxy, music is performed by those with skill."

"Hey! Maria and I had plenty of skill. And all the moves" she laughed, squirming against him.

She sighed at the memory, taking her hand back to push her hair out of her eyes. Yon-Rogg felt the loss of it for a moment before she returned it to his chest. She ran her fingers in small tight circles over the ridge of his pec. He was scared to breath in case the moment was broken. Her movements slowed and she stilled. He thought she had fallen asleep. He was looking down at her, the way her light brown lashes fanned against her cheek. Her brow creased and she hummed into the solid wall of his chest.

"Tell me a story." Of course, he sighed. Vers would never rest so easy.

"Go to sleep"

"Talos told me a story" she murmured.

"What kind of story do you want?" He sighed again and he felt her smile against him.

"Tell me about your first love."

"You know more about her than I do"

"Don't be like that" Vers' free hand smacked him on the chest and he caught it as it came up for another whack. "You know what I mean."

Yon-Rogg ran a thumb over her knuckles, before tracing each finger slowly.

"When I reached my majority my Father took me to a Krylorian brothel. Do you mean like that?"

Vers opened her eyes and looked up at him under sleepy lids. Her eyebrows were raised high.

"That is a terrible story. Why would I want to hear that?"

Yon-Rogg laughed at her but couldn't look her in the eyes. Instead he focused on how small her hand looked in his.

"It was one of the nicer things my father ever did for me. He had just conquered that world. He wanted to celebrate, but my brother was too young."

Vers' brow creased as she closed her eyes again.

"Why would your father not want to celebrate with you?"

"We can't always be what our father's dream of" he answered.

He put her hand to his mouth and circled his tongue over one knuckle.

She was drunk and tired. He should leave her alone, but if this was to be their last night he wanted the taste of her on his tongue one last time. He was rewarded with a small sound and the feeling of her pressing her knees together. At least her body still knew to whom it belonged.

"I am surprised you are willing to admit it you ever disapponted anyone, Great, honourable commander of Starforce. 

"You won't remember it in the morning anyway." He put her hand back on his chest, pressing it against him with his own hand.

"I will" she muttered as she finally drifted to sleep.

 

He opened his eyes and watched her profile as she co-piloted. He smiled. She hadn't remembered. Of course that was probably for the best.

* * *

 

They jumped and entered the orbit of the fourth moon of Nadiir within a matter of hours. Talos pulled the small blue dot that was Onigaia up on the screen. It shimmered and swirled like a gemstone below them.

"Look at it. Completely unguarded." Talos said his voice full of hope. Yon-Rogg scoffed. "What? You have something to add, Kree?"

"If you had any sense you would return to your ship." Yon-Rogg drawled. The Skrull's naivité was beginning to eat at him.

"Oooh I'm shaking. Why don't you open your mouth and share your intell instead of hovering around looking sour?" 

"You don't know what it is you are messing with."

"Enlighten us." Talos opened his arms. Carol looked from Yon-Rogg to Talos. Both were locked in a staring contest. At last Talos threw up his hands. "You try. Since you two are so connected. I can't stand to look at his face."

"It's fine Talos, Yon doesn't know. He just doesn't want to admit it." Carol leaned back in her chair watching the blue planet. Yon-Rogg's spine straightened.

"I know more than you could possible imagine." He growled at her. They were both getting on his nerves. Carol scoffed.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes" Yon-Rogg hissed out.

"Then tell us." Carol said arching an eyebrow. Yon-Rogg opened his mouth but caught himself. He shot Carol a dirty look.

"That almost worked" Talos said in shock looking from Carol to Yon-Rogg. He started to laugh. "She almost got you to spill it."

"Enough of this, you have no idea what Onigaia truly is." Yon-Rogg felt his temper flare.

Talos stopped laughing.

"It's a prison" he said straight faced.

"What? How-"

"Oh please Yon. Obviously. You practically told us."

"Listen to me. Both of you. Onigaia houses the most dangerous enemy known to the Kree empire. It's guarded by complete secrecy and a handful of Starforce elite. We have no hope of taking it just the three of us."

"Why not?" Talos sucked his teeth.

"What do you mean 'why not'? Haven't you been listening-"

"We have the greatest weapon the Kree ever built" Talos pointed to Carol. She waved at Yon-Rogg. "What are Starforce compared to Captain Marvel?"

Yon-Rogg threw up his hands in defeat.

"Oh look. He's pouting."

"I am not pouting. You will both regret-"

"He's pouting." Talos mouthed at Carol. Yon-Rogg thought he would lose his mind.

"And what is your great plan to survive The Secret Prison Planet of the Kree?" Yon-Rogg asked.

Talos sat in the Captain's chair swivelling back and forth his hands tented against his lips.

"The way I see it. We enter the atmosphere, cloaked, then explore the planet as three Starforce members. We come up with a plan to neutralize each guard one by one. Negotiate with the prisoner if necessary. If it gets hairy then we have the Human Lightning Bolt to punch our way out."

Carol nodded as he spoke. Yon-Rogg put his head in his hands.

"This is going to go so badly."

* * *

 

They entered the atmosphere of Onigaia several hours later. They had waited for the daylight to illuminate the atmosphere, throwing the clouds into sharp relief. They could be cloaked but they couldn't hope to disguise the flare of their ship entering the atmosphere. At least there was a chance during the light hours.

Yon-Rogg watched the Skrull and Vers work in tandem to pilot the craft to a smooth landing. The ship was not meant to move while cloaked, it took skill to maneuver it. The Skrull had taken on the appearance of a blue skinned Kree and Vers had begrudgingly shifted her armour back to standard issue green. Yon-Rogg was not expecting the way it made him feel to see her in his colours again. He anticipated feeling triumphant, but instead he felt apprehensive about what was to come.

Through the shield a lush fertile Paradise rose to meet them. If every civilization has a creation myth then the surface of Onigaia could satisfy them all. They landed near a copse of trees. Good cover as they embarked, springing suddenly into view as they exited the camouflage of the ship. Also a convenient marker should they have to retreat quickly.

All was clear as they snuck out.

The Skrull looked around him in wonder. Yon-Rogg knew he was picturing the planet full of his people. Free to feel the wind for the first time in a decade. To a man trapped in the shadows, Onigaia would feel like a miracle. Vers was smiling as well. Yon-Rogg remembered, as he saw the light reflect on her golden hair, the Skrull's dream of children and sunlight.

* * *

 

They crept along the line of trees. Their comms showing a disruption in the terrain that was most likely buildings ahead of them.

As they moved a dark line appeared on the horizon. It moved and shimmered. Talos froze as his eyes fell on it. They paused. Yon-Rogg saw Talos reach for his blaster but he held out his hand. Patience. Strategy. Control.

The line grew darker and began to take on the shape of individual men. Vers tensed, but she looked to Yon-Rogg. He shook his head slightly.

Soon the line met them. They fell in V formation behind a stout man, an inch shorter than Yon-Rogg. His skin was deep blue and he had a short sandy coloured beard. The last time Yon-Rogg had seen him was seven years ago, he had been lean and had a fire in his yellow eyes. Now his figure was soft and there was something glassy in his look, but when he hailed them his voice rang clear as ever.

"Yon-Rogg. I never thought you would show your face here." He stopped short of their party. Looking Yon-Rogg up and down. Disapproval dripping off of him.

"Xe" Yon-Rogg greeted him with a standard salute. The man's countenance broke and he gripped Yon-Rogg hard by the shoulders, smiling. Yon-Rogg felt Vers' eyes burning into him as he returned his younger brother's embrace.

"Onigaia welcomes you. I am glad you have come, Brother. And to bring such company." Xe turned to Vers, looking her up and down as if he meant to embrace her as well. "I am sorry it has taken so long for me to greet you properly, I had no idea-"

"We have travelled a long time, Xe" Yon-Rogg interrupted. Aware of the tension ratcheting up among his party. He couldn't have his brother revealing too much 

"Yes of course. You must make yourselves comfortable. And meet our prisoner. They are a fascination to be sure. The most fascinating thing on the planet. Excepting myself. Go take them. I will talk with my brother awhile longer."

Xe was as charming as ever Yon-Rogg saw. He opened his arms to them, gesturing amicably. The other troops stood aside to welcome Talos and Vers to their number.

They cautiously joined them. Vers' glanced back at him and Yon-Rogg hoped she could read it in his eyes. He needed her to stay calm.

They were led away and Yon-Rogg felt his gut churning. He turned to his brother and tried to return his warm-hearted smile. 

"The Supremor told you we would be coming?" He fell into step with Xe. They walked behind the party where they could not be overheard.

"I was informed, yes. To think it had to take you winning back your honour to come see your younger brother. For shame, Yon."

"I have been neglectful of you, but I hope you can see how my assignment and yours were meant to keep us apart." 

"Our Father was nothing if not a bold strategist." Xe nodded, his eyes fixed on the group ahead of them, but every once and awhile they would glance at his brother. Silence fell over them.

"You know, I would not believe it even when they told me. That you were disgraced. That you had taken a bloodwife. I did not think anyone in our family romantic enough for such an archaic ritual.The flesh must be strong with her to bring the stoic Yon-Rogg to his knees." Xe slapped him knowingly on the shoulder.

Yon-Rogg bristled at his words. He disliked the mere thought of anyone looking at Vers as a woman. Even his own brother. It made something in him claw at his insides. He kept his composure, but he knew his brother could see the way his eyes darkened. Yon-Rogg recognized the look that came into his brother's eyes. Just like their father, always seeking out a weakness.

"I am tempted to ask for a turn in her company." His brother winked at him and Yon-Rogg bit a hole in his cheek trying to contain his rage. That was what his brother wanted. "Ah, do not give me that look. The blood between us is not so strong that people would not be willing to look the other way."

Xe laughed watching the possesive fire in Yon-Rogg's eye. He tried to centre himself, to rise above his younger brother's words.

"Fine, I will leave your bride in peace. Next time bring a woman for me. I have scared all others off planet, save for the one that cannot leave. And while you know me to be a connoisseur of fine wines, there is such thing as being too aged in the barrel if you catch my meaning."

His brother winked at him again and Yon-Rogg faked a knowing smile. His brother had changed during his time on this pleasure planet. Yon-Rogg could spy weakness in him. Not just his physique, but in his ethos.

He looked up at the empty sky and wondered how long they had before the fire rained down on them.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, my kitchen is so clean
> 
> Don't ask me why it took so long to write this chapter, but it took a long long time and I still didn't get as far as I thought I would. C'est la vie, n'est ce pas?

"We will have a dinner to welcome you, of course," Xe-Rogg interrupted Yon-Rogg's thoughts as they walked together. "If the rumours are true about you, Brother, it has been a long time since you have had a proper meal."

"Will we have time before the Supremor's forces arrive?" Yon-Rogg felt his stomach clench. That was the question he most needed answered. How long did they have before the real battle began? Xe-Rogg made a dismissive sound. 

"This is not Hala. The Supremor knows only what we tell it. I have yet to call them. First I would like you to be here with me. Eat my food, see the prisoner, enjoy your bride. My gift to you."

Yon-Rogg understood his brother's meaning. He wanted to play lord and master. He had been denied his place among the Kree elite when he was sent here. Now Yon-Rogg, Vers, and the Skrull were to be his playthings. If they could please him long enough to escape without the SI being aware of their presence then it was possible they could retreat unscathed. Capturing Onigaia would be impossible, survival was not.

 

* * *

 

Onigaia was Paradise Carol thought. The grass that covered the surface was thick and sprung beneath their feet. Although she saw no animals the place felt vibrant with life. She could not imagine the prisoner who was kept here. Yon had said they were dangerous, but to be dangerous to the Kree meant your mind and spirit were free from their influence. That you stood as proof their Supreme Intelligence was not infallible. The Kree had use for zealots only when they furthered their cause.

Their welcome had been jarring. She had heard many tales of Yon's brother. She had felt a kinship to him. Being shaped by the same unforgiving hands to be the best that they could be. Now, the reality stood in front of her and she did not know what to think. He did not seem to be the warrior Yon had trained. He was so unlike Yon she would not have believed they were brothers if he hadn't greeted him as one. Although he had the yellow eyes.

She glanced at Talos as the soldiers closed ranks around them. He seemed calm. She wished they could read each other's thoughts. It was obvious they were not prisoners, yet. Yon-Rogg fell farther behind them. His look had told Carol she needed to stay calm. She needed to trust him, but that no longer came easy for her. She wanted to push forward not languish in this unknown. If they were to capture this planet she wanted to begin immediately.

Talos looked around him perturbed by what he saw. This place was not what he had been expecting, or it was what he expected before they learned Onigaia was a prison. Now it was unsettling to his senses. He saw around him the weakened, fatted calves he had expected to find, but no sign of a prisoner. Curse that bloody, slimy Kree. All he had to offer were half-truths. It was his brother who guarded this place and for all his heavy words that fact had never left his mouth. The entire thing had the feeling of a well-baited trap. How long before it closed around them?

  
Talos wanted this planet. He wanted it badly. It was the lush, fertile ground his people deserved. He thought they may still be able to take it. If he could assess the prisoner maybe barter what they wanted. Offer them passage off this planet. If they were an enemy of the Kree, they could be a friend to the Skrulls. They neared a low building that glowed in the purple sun of Onigaia.

He saw Carol's eyes roving about. He could feel the heat radiating off her skin. He needed her to stay calm. She was not a spy; she was a blade. She was made for extraction. He wanted her to know they needed to be here. There would not be a better chance of finding a home for the Skrulls.

"It's beautiful here," he said casually as he watched the small movements of the guards around. "When the Commander said we would be coming to a prison I did not expect such beauty."

The guards turned to look at him more fully. Carol too, was looking at him with narrowed eyes, but her hands had relaxed.

"You have a strange guard, my lady. He speaks out of turn. And when he does it is poetry" The leader of the group said, barely turning his head to speak over his shoulder. He had blue skin and a thick build. His eyes looked to be the dark purple of the purest blood. Carol was unfamiliar with this world of elitism. In her time on Hala, she had lived exclusively among the soldiers. She understood that she was expected to comment on Talos.

  
"The Commander does not hold us to such strict rules when we are a small party. It would be inefficient." She kept her eyes forward and her mouth in a firm line. It felt alien calling Yon by his rank once again.

"Commander Yon-Rogg has not been heard of on Hala in over a year. Many assumed he died with the rest of his party during the extraction of Torfa."

Carols gut clenched. They had not died on Torfa.

"Torfa was merely a beginning" she answered.

"My lady?" There was a high feminine voice calling to them from the colonnade. Carol glanced around. Their group stilled. "My lady, the master has made arrangements for you and the lord in the main house."

Talos leaned close to her ear. "That might mean you, sweets"

"My lady?" The voice came from a petite Krylorian. Something in the back of Carol's mind wriggled. Had they been talking about Krylorians recently?

"Do you mean me?" She asked incredulously.

"Yes, My lady. Please follow me." The girl gestured into the building before taking small mincing steps away from the group. Carol glanced at Talos, who nodded slightly. His eyes told her he would be fine, but Carol was hesitant.

She followed behind the girl, she moved cautiously, her eyes taking in her surroundings. She wondered where the prisoner was. There was a foreboding feeling in the smooth marble walls. As if at any moment something could step between the columns.

Every once in awhile the girl would glance behind her and Carol would try to adopt a relaxed attitude. The girl walked quicker in front of her.

"What's your name?" Carol asked on the third time she glanced back at her.

"My name is Greet" the girl smiled an empty smile.

"And where are you taking me, Greet?"

"I am to prepare you to meet the Prisoner. You cannot go like that." The girl's eyes swept down Carol's armour with an apprehensive look. Carol followed her eyes.

"Why? What's wrong with me?"

"Onigaia is a place of peace." The girl stopped and waved Carol into a small room.

Carol entered cautiously, her eyes sweeping the pale walls and the clothing that hung on every surface.

"We come in… Peace" Carol said, the words feeling ridiculous in her mouth. Greet followed her into the room.

She began perusing the shelves. She held out a scrap of fabric against Carol. Carol stepped back as if it had burned her. Greet smiled emptily at her.

"Master has certain rules to ensure peace is maintained. Your current –" Greet searched for a word. "Way of being is not allowed by the Master."

"And what way would your Master like me to be?" Carol watched the girl with wary eyes.

"Master likes things to be beautiful. And obedient."

"I'm not good at either of those things."

"Greet will do her best." The girl clasped her hands in front of her and closed her eyes as if making a wish.

* * *

 Yon-Rogg and his brother continued their walk behind the group. His brother was gregarious as always. He laughed and jostled Yon-Rogg's ribs as he pointed out things that made him think of their childhood. It reminded Yon-Rogg how different their lives had been despite growing up always within each other's sights.

Xe-Rogg had been gone from Hala a long time, including for their father's funeral. Yon-Rogg wondered if that had been the catalyst for the change he saw in his brother. Without his champion on Hala had Xe-Rogg begun to feel trapped within the pleasures of Onigaia?

Given the choice, Yon-Rogg would have had his brother return to Hala after their father's death. Yon-Rogg had never felt like a bigger fraud than when he had stood beside his father's body, knowing he was the last person his father would want there. His mother had cried against the coffin and Yon-Rogg had helped her to her feet when it was time. He was sure no one noticed how she had stiffened in his arms. It had felt like a sliver beneath his skin the way she wanted to be free of him even when at that moment she had no one else. He had hated his father for taking his life's secrets to his grave. One more piece of the puzzle as to who Yon-Rogg was and where he had come from consumed by the great furnace in the temple of the Supreme Intelligence.

They had exsanguinated his father's body as was custom. An ancient Kree tradition, it was meant to be poured on the foundation of his estate. To ensure the succession of his line, to inspire strong children to spring from the earth of their forefathers. As his eldest, Yon-Rogg had stood before the altar to take the metal cask that held his father's blood. Blood he may or may not share.

He had been drained by the day. The simple formalities emptying him more than the bloodiest of battles. When he was on the battlefield his purpose narrowed. He saw only what he needed to see, felt only what he needed to feel. Trapped among his father's peers, feeling the waves of their pity and their curiosity, he had been a raw nerve. So many blue hands pressed against his pink one. To see so many purple eyes search his face for resemblance, even while they wore immovable masks of sorrow. He was a fraud. He was not the son that should have been standing there. He was a spare limb, a superfluous organ as likely to fester as to be ignored. And they all knew it.  
When he returned to his quarters Vers had been there. Looking out at the sinking orange sun of Hala. She was in her civilian clothes, her arms and feet bare. The pale colour of her skin lit by the warm light streaming through the window. She turned to him and smiled. A brief moment before her eyes returned to the sky. He should have asked why she was there, how she had gotten in, who she thought she was wondering into his private domain? He found as he felt her smile wash over him, that he didn't care.  
They came to the top of a small rolling hill; the green grass was lush beneath Yon-Rogg's feet. There was a smell in the air that reminded him of his boyhood. It was the smell of water and earth, but also wealth. As the ground fell away, they could look down into a basin where there was a low white building. It was all jutting beams and posts. It gleamed in the low Onigaia sun. Yon-Rogg forgot how to breathe. It was DarRogg. Their family home on Hala. The place where Yon and Xe began. The place he had not been back to since he left for the Academy. Xe-Rogg came to stand beside him; the glassy look in his eye lit with an unfamiliar light.

 

"Look familiar? I have dreamed of you joining me here brother. Of showing you what I have built." Xe-Rogg patted Yon-Rogg on the shoulder "When we arrived here, they meant for us to live like peasants, but the council soon saw the error of their ways."

Yon-Rogg was sure his father had swayed their opinion. Or simply circumvented it. Supplying all that was needed to create DarRogg here on Onigaia. Or some shadow of a shadow of DarRogg.

"Father would have been proud, Xe"

They reached the smooth stone steps that lead into the grand hall and a crash broke the tranquility. There was a scuffle and the sound of distress. Yon-Rogg tensed, but Xe merely laughed.  
“Your woman is causing trouble. If she is this much of a fighter now, should I be concerned about the sounds that will destroy our peace at night?”

Yon-Rogg tried to laugh, but he was desperate to go to her. Curb whatever foolish mistake she was about to make that could cost them their window of escape.

“Go to her, lovesick fool. I am not like Father who would begrudge you your pleasures. Or your pets.”  
He laughed as Yon-Rogg took the stairs two at a time.

Yon-Rogg followed the noise to a small dressing room off of a larger bedroom. A distressed Krylorian girl was in a standoff with Vers, who was hissing at her like a wet cat. She gave him a laser stare as soon as he entered the room. 

"My lady, please the master won't allow you to remain like this" the Krylorian begged a garment crumpled in her hands.

"Yon, get her away from me."

"Leave us" He commanded to the maid who turned her large dark eyes on him, pleading.

"My lord, you cannot be here. I must dress the lady for her visit."

"Like hell you will," Vers growled at her. The Krylorian looked on the verge of tears.

"Leave us" he repeated. The girl curtsied and scurried from the room. Vers relaxed.

"Can you believe she wanted my armour?"

"Yes. Now take it off" Yon-Rogg's eyes were dark as he looked at her. She arched her eyebrows.

“I politely decline, Commander.”

“Vers. You have no idea what you are messing with.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me, because it seems to me, Yon, that you know exactly what is going on. And honestly, I don’t find that comforting. At all”

He stepped closer to her, closing the distance between them. She raised her fists even as she took a step away from him. His hand found the closure at the neck of her suit and pulled it open. Cold fire started to burn behind her eyes and glow beneath her skin, but she didn’t stop him.

“We are three outlaws on an empty planet and the only people who know where we are and what we are trying to do are the women, children, and invalids of a dying warrior race. It is the time to assimilate Vers. Not to fight.” He whispered low to her, looking around for interlopers.

He tugged the armour down off her shoulders, exposing the white of her compression suit, he left it bunched around her wrists. Vers shot daggers at him.

“Are you a traitor, Yon? Because it seems to me you are practically – “she leaned in close to him. Freeing her hands from her armour. “Cozy here.”

“The keeper here has the Supremor on speed dial. Our only hope to survive, to leave this place before hell rains down on us is to play his game long enough to return to our ship.”

“Call him what he is Yon, your brother.”

“ _My brother_ is willing to entertain us here. We can buy time until we can leave.” He found the clasp to his own suit. His brother had told him their armour could not be worn in DarRogg. That the only rule of the Supremor they kept was the prisoner was to be kept away from technology.

He parted his armour revealing his own compression suit. She was mad. He could feel it radiating off of her, but at least she was listening.

“Are we just going to leave? What has changed that we won’t capture Onigaia? Is it because of who -”

Yon-Rogg covered her mouth with his hand backing them more firmly against the wall. He leaned in close to her. From the door, it would look like they were in an embrace.

“Vers. Use your senses. Stop fighting me. Assume there are eyes and ears on us wherever we are-“Yon-Rogg released her mouth with a disgusted grunt. “Did you just lick me?”

“Not so lady-like, am I?” Carol stretched her jaw where he had been gripping her. “Speaking of, why do they keep calling me that?”

“Calling you what?” Yon-Rogg wiped his hand on the front of his shirt.

“Lady”

“Ah.” He stepped back from her.

“Ah?” She followed him, staying close.

“They think you are- “he looked away from her. He searched for a word that wouldn’t cause her to attack him.

“They think I am?” She looked at him through narrowed eyes.

“My consort” he muttered. Vers punched him.

“And you didn’t correct them?”

“If you remember we have consorted.” He said rubbing the spot on his chest where her fist had made impact. “Regardless it is a good cover. It will keep us together.”

“Shockingly, I don’t find that comforting.”

She reached over and unclasped the gauntlets at his wrists. 

"Yon" she looked away from him. Her voice was serious. He fought the urge to hold her face in his hands. "What I said on the ship. It still stands, but I never thought your brother would be here. When the time comes I will understand if you can't-"

Yon-Rogg growled low in his throat. He shoved the shell of his armour away from his body and peeled off the shirt beneath. She still would not look at him, but her eyes flashed over his skin quickly, a smile twitching at her lips. He took her hand and pushed it hard against his throat so she could feel the flutter of his pulse like a caress against her palm. 

"We share blood. I am in your veins. I have never made any promise to you that I would not conquer one hundred worlds to keep."

Finally, Vers looked at him. Her eyes moving from where he held her hand to his skin to his eyes.

"You and your brother also share blood," she said.

He stepped away from her dropping her hand. Too many truths were unsaid between them. Too many half lies uncorrected.

 

 

Xe-Rogg greeted them under the colonnade. He had dispensed with his armour and was wearing clothes similar to what was worn on Hala. Vers moved awkwardly with the swirling fabric around her legs.

"She is lovely, Yon." Xe smiled as he stepped back to admire Vers. "My brother is renowned for his unerring taste in all things."

Vers looked at him coolly and Xe's smile began to falter. Yon-Rogg placed a hand on her waist, finding bare skin where cutouts had been made in the cloth. He subtly dug a thumb into the flesh above her kidney. She grimaced at his brother, who seemed appeased and continued walking.

"I know subtlety is not in your nature, Vers" Yon-Rogg said through clenched teeth "but playing along will buy us time. The time that we need to accomplish your mission."

She did not look at him but kept her eyes ahead.

"How come it is 'my mission' when it is going poorly and 'ours' when it's not?" she murmured back.

"Oh Vers, this isn't even the beginning of how bad it could go."

 

* * *

 

Talos followed the guards to the back barracks. They split off once they arrived into clusters of inactivity. Almost all began to strip out of their armour. A red-headed Kree was the first to put his feet up.

“All that for a ten-minute welcome party. I am surprised Rogg even fits in his armour anymore.” The red-head said to no one in particular. There were a few low laughs among the group of them. By Talos’ count, there could not be more than nine guards on the whole planet.

“Since he is so eager to show off one of us will have to go catch the old witch. He won't like her to be far if he has guests about.” Another young Kree announced. Though he made no move to secure his armour back in place.

“The witch?” Talos asked. He tried to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

“Didn't you know? They are quite the pair; the mad king and queen of Onigaia.”

“He means the prisoner.” The large blue Kree corrected gruffly. “She has no way off this planet, so they don't lock her up. She spends most of her days in the forests. One of us goes to get her at meal times. Not that she eats. Or sleeps. It is why they call her the witch. She runs on disdain for the Kree empire.”

“I will go get her if one of you will give me guidance” Talos volunteered. It would be good to see what this witch of Onigaia looked like. The Kree glanced between themselves. None seemed eager to move.

“Leave your blaster here. You can borrow my blade. The only law in Onigaia is she cannot be near tech.”

Talos willingly dropped his blaster on the table.

“Tell me where to find her.”

* * *

 

Talos followed their directions to a small wooded area. He had leapt at the chance to see more of Onigaia. The lack of discipline among the Kree here was unusual, but it whetted his appetite to capture the planet. He need only bring the prisoner to their side and they could begin.

The trees opened to a beautiful pool of water. A rock formation on one side provided shelter and an outcropping on which to sit. He did not see the woman they called the witch, but he stayed hidden in the trees watching for her.  
He did not have to wait long before there was a movement between the rocks at the far side of the pool. A flash of sun against light coloured clothing. Arms bracing against the smooth surface of the stone. A body pulling itself up from the earth.  
Red cropped hair. She leant over the edge of the rock scrubbing her face and hands free of soil in the pool.

Talos’ heart stopped. He knew her even from a distance. He charged from between the trees immediately splashing into the shallow water. The sound drew her attention and she froze.  
She didn't recognize him he realized. She would see only a Kree soldier.

He splashed closer to her hoping she would not run.

“Who are you?” She called out shading her eyes against the light, so she could see him better. The words that came from Talos lived deep in his memory. Words of poetry, sacred to his people. Also, the code they used to hail one another in times of danger.

“I am the changing vessel, the unmolded clay.” The woman froze. They were words she had not heard in many years.

“And I am the water that takes the shape of the unmolded clay” She answered. She dropped into the water; it rose to her knees, but she was unphased as she splashed out to meet him.

She gripped him firmly as if he might fade beneath her hands. He gripped her back.

“You are a long way from home, Mar-Vell”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you guys ready for the beginning of the end!
> 
> We hit over 200 kudos which just makes me so warm and fuzzy on the inside. Thank you for all your support!

Talos walked beside Mar-Vell as they returned DarRogg. He watched her as her eyes watched the sky and she breathed in the wind.

 

"It is beautiful here, Talos. As soon as I saw it I thought of you and Soren. And your children." She smiled at him. "Of course you are earlier than I expected."

 

"You expected us to find you?"

 

"I knew you would. I had faith that the tesseract would find me again. So I could rebuild the core."

 

"You don't sound much like a scientist, Doctor."

 

"A true scientist knows when to choose facts and when to trust their instinct. This place felt like your home. You feel it, don't you?"

 

"Yes I feel it. The perfect reward for my people's suffering."

 

They walked together in silence. The planet seemed at peace. As DarRogg came into sight Talos fell into step behind her. Two Krylorian girls came running across the basin.

 

"Mar-Vell" they called for her in unison. They stopped short when they saw Talos their hands coming up to cover their mouth.

 

"Gret, Greet" Mar-Vell nodded her head at the girls who smiled at her in unison. "They are twins"

 

"Gret was born first."

 

"Greet was a surprise."

 

They giggled behind their hands.

 

"They are the servants of the Keeper of this place. What is it, girls?"

 

"The Keeper's brother is here."

 

"There will be a feast."

 

"And then they will come to you. "

 

"Yon-Rogg is here?" Mar-Vell asked. The girls nodded. "Thank you for the warning, girls. Go in before someone sees you."

 

The girls ran off. An eerie sight, pink against the lush green.

 

"You came with Yon-Rogg, then?" Mar-Vell remained the same, but to Talos who was attuned to her very cells he felt the edge of concern.

 

"Yes"

 

"Does he know I am here?"

 

"I assume so" Talos did not have a better answer for her. The Kree had been slippery with his facts.

 

"Do you trust him?"

 

"No" Talos hesitated "but I have a friend who does."

 

"Anyone I would know?" Mar-Vell mustered a smile and continued walking towards the house. Already, Talos could see guards coming to meet them.

 

"How much do you remember? Before you were captured?" Talos leant in to whisper to Mar-Vell.

 

"Not enough, but I know who it was who shot us down. The only person I blame more than him for my pilot's death is myself."

 

* * *

 

Xe-Rogg led them on a tour of his estate. Each hall as empty and meaningless as the next. Carol's feet hurt. Not only was she in a ridiculous dress, it had ridiculous shoes to match. Yon-Rogg walked silently beside her, smiling whenever Xe-Rogg turned to look at him, but Carol could tell something was eating away at him.

 

They ended up in a long dining room, the stone pink with the light from burning braizers. There was a long table in the centre. It was carved of the same stone as the room so it appeared to rise from the floor. The Krylorian girl entered at one end of the hall. She had a metal loop around her head. Small sensors attached to her temples. On her hands she had wired gloves. She held stacks of gold dishes.

 

Xe-Rogg motioned them to sit. He sat at the head of the table. Yon-Rogg and Carol took their awkward places across from each other. Carol watched as the girl walked slowly around the table. Empty smile and empty eyes.

 

She placed a goblet in front of Carol.

 

"What are you doing here, Greet?"

 

"I am not Greet. I am her sister, Gret." Her eyes flickered to life in front of Carol.

 

"Do not disturb her while she cooks," Xe-Rogg interjected. "Or we will all suffer."

 

Carol glanced across the table at Yon-Rogg whose eyes followed Gret as she made her way around the table. Something inside Carol twitched slightly in the way his eyes followed the Krylorian. She had the vague desire to throw something at him or kick him under the table. She swallowed it as Greet joined them. Her hands were full of more dishes. She seemed more alert than her sister. Both girls were visions in the soft light. They had small turned up noses and full lips. Their hair was worn down over their backs in a cascade of curls so black they were blue. They wore diaphonous dresses so fine a tinge of pink showed through.

 

Once the table was set for them dinner began. Greet would pick up a dish and hold it out empty to her sister. Gret would fill it using her hands to map the shape of heaps of food. Violet blue light glowed between her hands and around the metal halo in her hair.

 

"A replicator?" Yon-Rogg looked at his brother in surprise. "How did the Surpremor allow this? If the prisoner were to get ahold of it-"

 

Xe-Rogg held up his hand to stop Yon-Rogg's talking. "I merely ordered two of the finest serving girls from a charming brothel on Nadiir. If they happened to come with a replicator how could I have anticipated it before it was too late to return them?"

 

Carol's eyes snapped to Yon-Rogg. Something was definitely wriggling in the back of her mind. She couldn't find the shape of it. He glanced at her briefly, then realizing the intensity of her stare his eyes came back to her. 'What' he mouthed. Carol looked back to Xe-Rogg, a firm set to her chin.

 

"As for the prisoner, one must be a genetic match to one of these girls in order to use it. So I may eat well and also sleep well."

 

The table was soon filled with plates of food. There were glistening piles of fruits. Plates of strange preserved meats and sea shells with their damp inhabitants steaming inside. Gret circled the table picking up each goblet in turn. Filling it with blue light that cooled to dark red wine. Carol didn't know what to do, the food had appeared from the air. A story came to mind, one she had learned in school, the myth of the god of death and the goddess of spring.

 

"You eat well here, brother." Yon reached for a fruit slicing it open, turning it in the low light.

 

"The twins, like I said are from one of the most well respected pleasure houses on all of Nadiir. They have imagination when it comes to crafting a meal. I find them irreplaceable."

 

Xe-Rogg stood and began to fill his plate, inspecting each dish. Carol slipped a knife from the table and held it in her lap testing the point against her finger. Yon-Rogg's eyes burnt into her.

 

"Vers" his voice held a warning. It crept down her spine. She hid the knife between her thighs.

 

"Your woman doesn't eat, Yon?" Xe-Rogg's voice was offended even though he smiled. "She didn't strike me as shy."

 

Yon-Rogg felt the ripple of his brother's annoyance. This dinner was not following his fantasy. Vers glowed golden in the flickering light, but her mouth was set in a hard line. Yon-Rogg stood smiling at his brother.

 

"You have more experience with women than I do, younger brother. Sometimes they like to be difficult."

 

He came to lean beside Vers. He selected a piece of fruit and held it against her lips. She narrowed her eyes at him. He gave her a look begging her to play along.

 

"Yes Brother, sometimes the persuasion is more fun than the seduction." Xe-Rogg gave him a knowing smile as Vers' mouth opened for Yon-Rogg. Yon-Rogg took a sip of the wine from Vers' goblet. It was sweet and thick. He wondered how his brother drank so deeply from his glass. It made Yon want to gag.

 

His brother appeared appeased, but his eyes held on Vers. Yon-Rogg had the sudden urge to pluck them out of his head. He tamped down on the desire as Vers' eyes stayed on him. Yon-Rogg searched the table for more distraction. He grabbed a small piece of bread and dipped it in oil. He offered it to Vers, a small drop of oil running down his thumb.

 

Yon-Rogg was apparently going to feed her while his brother watched. Carol was livid. It was bad enough she was being treated like Yon's plaything. Now she had a heavy set voyeur looking at her. Fine, Yon wanted to appease his brother she could play along if it meant they would capture this planet. She could persevere for Talos and his family.

 

She licked the drop from Yon's thumb before taking the bread from his fingers. Yon swallowed, he watched her mouth intensely. She brought the gold knife hidden in her palm, letting him feel it as she ran her hand up his leg. As she reached his thigh she adjusted her grip so the tip of the blade was digging in inches below him. He laughed, adjusting so his brother couldn't see the knife.

 

Yon-Rogg realized it was probably sick of him to be so aroused by a woman holding a knife to a major artery.

 

"What is so funny, Brother?" Xe-Rogg watched him over the rim of his golden goblet.

 

"I was just thinking, that my lovely, lovely consort has had no wine." Yon-Rogg grabbed Vers' blade hand steadying it as he took her goblet in his other hand. Her lip twitched at the smell of more alcohol. He braced as she tried to push the blade more firmly against his leg. Responding by pushing the goblet more insistently to her lip. She caved first, taking the stem in her free hand and pouring a healthy dose down her throat. She breathed in through her nose.

 

Xe-Rogg watched Yon-Rogg and Carol with an unhealthy light in his eyes, but they were beginning to droop.

 

"Now that we have all eaten. Gret!" He slurred slightly. Gret came on carrying a heavy metal cask. Yon-Rogg blanched his hand loosening on Carol's. She furrowed her eyebrows at him.

 

"Where did you get that?" He asked his eyes fixed on the cask.

 

"A gift from Mother." Xe-Rogg answered running a protective hand over it. "Send your consort away. This is - family business."

 

"Leave, Vers"

 

"Yon-"

 

"Leave." Yon-Rogg snarled at her. Carol got up quickly making a hasty exit. As soon as she stood she felt the heavy weight of the wine in her limbs. How could it be so potent?

 

She slipped into the hallway, but caught the door so she could peak through the sliver of the door. Yon-Rogg was standing stiffly while Xe-Rogg spoke in wide gestures. Gret was kneeling beside his chair. Something deep and dark inside her didn't want to leave Yon alone with another woman.

 

"My lady?"

 

Carol jumped. She turned to see Greet looking vacantly at her. She immediately felt the uncomfortable tingle of shame. She had been caught having very unfair thoughts about Greet's sister.

 

"I have been asked to bring you to the prisoner."

 

"Now? But I am alone."

 

"Yes, the prisoner would prefer it that way."

 

"They are asking for me?"

 

"Yes, but do not be afraid. They are very kind."

 

"I am not afraid."

 

* * *

 

They walked together down a dark, cold marble hallway. Only the large, swollen moon hung in the sky. It was, Carol supposed, one of the moons of Nadiir. It cast everything into pale relief.

 

Greet no longer walked with her tiny mincing steps, but strode through the hall her fine gown wafting behind her. Carol thought she looked like Persephone leading Carol to the gates of the underworld.

 

They came to three small stairs down that puddled out into a large vaulted foyer. There were no guards here, only an eerie stillness.

 

"Where are the guards?"

 

"They don't like to be here at night. So they don't come. I will wait here a moment. Please go in."

 

Carol nodded, pushing open the cold slab of marble that served as a door.

 

The room was large, she had expected a hovel but this had the feeling of being a conservatory or parlour. Where every thing everywhere was white, this room was dark, dark slate. The ceiling was only made of shield and the stars shone above them. In the centre of the room a bare light shone, throwing a jarring circle of light and shadow around the room. A figure had her back to Carol. They were bent over something, one hand moving wildly as if writing quickly. They wore loose light grey clothes. They hung off the prisoner's body as if the prisoner had shrunk since arriving. Carol's foot scraped on the floor and the prisoner's head came up. A familiar head.

 

Carol heard a choked sound echo through the room. She realized it had come from her own throat but in that moment she felt cold and as if she was floating outside of her body. She wasn't sure she could breathe.

 

Dr. Wendy Lawson, Mar-Vell, turned to look at her. She smiled and Carol was certain she was in a dream.

 

"Look at you, Ace. What are you wearing?"

 

Carol laughed, her laughter soaked with unshed tears. She looked down at herself. This must be a dream. Only dreams looked like this and felt like this.

 

"I don't know," her tears broke through, rolling down her cheeks in big wet drops. "I don't know what I am wearing."

 

She sobbed, each sob shaking her harder until she had to wrap her arms around her middle to stop herself from shaking apart. Mar-Vell stood. She looked smaller than in Carol's memories. As if all the hope and love had condensed from the macro to the micro. She took Carol's face in her hands; they were rough, firm hands. She let the tears run over her thumbs as Carol tried to sniff them back. Carol started laughing as Mar-Vell smiled at her brushing away each new, fat tear. Carol Danvers would never have cried like this, not in front of anyone. Here though, in this strange world on the edge of dreams and waking she allowed all her giddy relief and deep sorrow to pour out of her.

 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry" Carol wrapped her arms around the woman, feeling the way Mar-Vell's bones pushed into her arms. She felt paper thin and fragile like a bird. When Mar-Vell hugged Carol back her arms were strong. She felt at such odds. "I thought you were dead, I shouldn't have believed them. I should have pushed harder."

 

"Don't be sorry. I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead and of all the faces that haunt my dreams I never saw yours. I thought you were too mad even to hate me." Mar-Vell soothed her hands over her back again and again. Her voice shook. Carol held her tighter. She couldn't tell her not to let the dead haunt her. She couldn't say it wasn't her fault. She could only hold her tighter.

 

Mar-Vell stepped away from her first, holding Carol's face in her hands again.

 

"But look at you Ace, you survived. Talos told me he had found an ally on Earth. I could hardly hope it was you. What do you remember?"

 

Mar-Vell released her and walked back to her desk. It was familiar. They would stand like this after a flight. Dissect it in its minutiae, Mar-Vell's hand flying as she took notes. Carol shook her head. They couldn't do that this time.

 

"I don't remember much. What I do - I don't know what is real anymore."

 

"You are not alone. There are times when I am unsure I was ever on Earth. There are others when all I can imagine is destruction my core could cause in the hands of the Kree. I have had dreams of far off civilizations burning. My only comfort is they would be limited without the Tesseract. That we managed to hide that much from them, but Talos says he doesn't have it. I need it. We must stop it falling into the wrong hands."

 

Mar-Vell was drawing on the slate that surrounded her with a scrap of chalk. An old habit of a mind too quick to keep pace with her mouth.

 

"I destroyed your core."

 

Mar-Vell dropped her chalk.

 

"No."

 

"I am sorry, I had to-" Carol stumbled over her words. She thought that would be what Mar-Vell wanted.

 

"No you couldn't have. You would have died. You would be dead." There was a rising panic in her voice. She came around the table to look at Carol more closely. Unsure if she was a ghost or a figment of her own guilt.

 

"I am dead. I mean Carol Danvers is dead. I am something else." Carol swallowed hard fighting more tears. She would not cry for Carol Danvers. She held out her hand allowing the pale blue flame to spring to life in her palm.

 

"You didn't tell me that part." She called into the darkness, her eyes unmoving from Carol's hand. There was a shuffling in the dark and Carol's head turned quickly to see Greet stepping from the shadows.

 

"You know I am not one for the sciences, Doc." Greet's voice deepend and she shook her body. Shivering back into Talos.

 

"Talos? Dick move," her eyes narrowed at him.

 

"Didn't get my ears that time, did you love?" Talos smiled at her holding his hands up to frame his ears. He shook his body back into Greet.

 

Mar-Vell took Carol's hand in hers, cupping it carefully so it did not burn her. She pulled Carol towards her desk and selected a small piece of paper from the table. She passed it through the flame and it smouldered. Mar-Vell's eyes widened.

 

"How is your body withstanding this?"

 

"I barely understand. A lot happened when I wasn't awake. Yon he took me-"

 

"Yon-Rogg?"

 

"Yes he took me to Hala. They made me able to - to contain all of this."

 

"Your body has become one with the core."

 

"That's not all she has become one with." Greet lifted her eyebrows suggestively.

 

"Talos" Carol hissed at him.

 

"What does he mean?"

 

"He thinks because I had blood transfusion on Hala Yon-Rogg has influence over me. It was a medical procedure-"

 

"It's a blood bond" Mar-Vell had gone white. She ran her fingers through her hair. "To the Kree blood is sacred."

 

"I know. To spill blood is to possess. To lose blood is to fail-"

 

"It's more than that. The mingling of two bloods is the oldest of the Kree rituals."

 

"I wouldn't say our blood... Mingled"

 

"Has he received blood from you?"

 

Carol paused as she remembered Yon's mouth pulling against her palm. The heat of his mouth as he made her swallow their mixed blood from him. She shook her head.

 

"Ace, I need you to understand. Understand what you have become part of. You are, by all our laws and sacrements, one. A Kree separated from their mate will wither. They will lose their strength, you could lose your ability to contain the core-"

 

"We were apart before. I survived."

 

"The bond is only half complete. He would have been weakened when you found him again. If he were to take your blood the same could happen to you. Not to mention, His word would be law over you on Hala. No ecumenical council or galactic union could free you if he chose to hold you there. Not without violating every peace treaty and declaring war."

 

The room tightened around Carol as she felt her body grow cold.

 

"Yon wouldn't do that."

 

"The Kree has not been a man of honour. How can you be sure?" Talos asked, Greet's voice heavy.

 

"I would never return to Hala. I would never go back there." Her breathing was shallow. The room didn't seem to have enough air.

 

"Carol, listen to me. We will undo it."

 

"How?" Carol grasped her forearm so hard it hurt. "The blood is already in me."

 

"It is only half done. What is half done can be undone. And we will once we take the planet."

 

"If we capture Onigaia the Kree will come." Carol thought she would throw up.

 

"Not capture. Take. We are going go use the engine to steal the planet." Mar-Vell said turning a star chart towards her, their route clearly mapped.

 

* * *

 

Carol walked back to her room in a daze. The wild relief she felt finding Mar-Vell, what she had told her and the impossible plan to steal the planet for the Skrulls all warred to take up residency in her mind. Instead, she just felt dizzy.

 

Greet, the real Greet, had found her wandering the halls and happily minced her back to her room. She had yet to see it. As with every other room it had white marble walls and was lit with flickering candles. One wall housed a massive bed. At the foot of it a well padded curved bench of baffling construction. There was really nothing else.

 

Carol was relieved Greet did not follow her in. She wanted to be alone. Carol could not remember the last time she slept in a real bed. Not a slim cabin mattress on a ship or the hard bunks on Hala. A bed. She sat down on it. Feeling it sink beneath her weight. She stared for awhile into the flickering flame casting shadows on the marble. She was not really seeing it. Instead she was seeing Mar-Vell's face as she explained her plan. She was hearing Talos full of hope.

She was feeling the creeping fear that Mar-Vell had lost her mind on Onigaia. She hated herself for her lack of faith, but how were they supposed to turn an entire planet, even a small one, into a ship before the Kree's forces arrived. Carol collapsed sideways, cushioning her head on her arm. She curled her feet up and used her finger to trace the dark blue veins in her elbow.

Yon's control of her was burrowed beneath her skin. Even half a bond had hollowed her out, conflicted her, made her ache with desire. He had owned her on Hala. She felt cold, unsettling panic hover over her like an invisible hand. Mar-Vell had promised to undo it, but all she could do was replace Yon's blood with another. Pass ownership of herself to someone else. Someone more benevolent. Someone who had not used her. Someone she could trust. Offer her blood to them so that they could have equal footing. Each stand on a different side of the scale holding the other's heart.

Yon-Rogg strode into the room, he paused when he saw her curled on the bed. Carol looked over her shoulder, hand paused on her skin.

"Go away, Yon."

"Why are you sulking?"

"My feet hurt" she said. How could she explain what had happened in the time they had been apart? How she was consumed by either the feeling of being betrayed or being the betrayer.

 

She could see him from the corner of her eye, moving across the room. Her eyes returned to spider's web beneath her skin. She felt the mattress shift as he sat on the bed. She curled deeper into herself.

 

"Go away"

 

"This is my room"

 

She sightlessly aimed a kick at him. He grabbed her ankle. She tried to pull it away, making a frustrated sound. He jerked her hard so her foot was in his lap.

 

"What are you doing?" She tried to look at him, but couldn't get a good angle as he held her ankle.

 

Yon-Rogg gave her look that told her not to ask more questions. Carol collapsed down onto the pillow intentionally not looking at him. He slipped one shoe off and dropped it on the floor. He took her aching foot between his two hands and squeezed firmly. Carol groaned at the wonderful pressure.

 

He moved her foot back to the mattress and slipped his other hand beneath her skirts. He fished her other foot out and did the same thing. She groaned again rolling her face into her pillow

 

"My feet hurt because of you, so I am not going to say sorry for kicking you." She said into the pillow.

 

"Your feet hurt because of shoes, Vers"

 

"Shoes you picked."

 

"Then that should be a lesson about picking your own shoes."

 

Carol kicked him again. He took the first kick to the side. The second one was faster and angrier. He pinned her leg to his side. She moved to break his grip. He turned into her, using her momentum to roll her on her back. Knees catching her skirts, she was briefly tangled in her own dress. She began to sit up anger radiated off her. He slammed the heel of his palm into her sternum, knocking her back to the mattress. Pinning her in place. She snarled her teeth at him.

 

"Vers, you are an elite warrior who has traveled the galaxy," he was breathing heavy, his yellow eyes bright from effort. He leaned in close to her, his voice barely a whisper. "I know you are not angry about shoes."

 

She attacked his elbow, buckling his grip and letting roll out from under him. She tried to move off the far side of the bed but her legs were still tangled in her skirts. He recovered and hauled her back by the waist so she was laying across the bed.

 

"Would you take us back to Hala?" She asked the question burning in her chest. Yon-Rogg froze. "Would you take me back there and strip all my memories?"

 

"Why are you thinking like this? You wanted me to prove myself to you. Do you think I would choose the easy way out?"

 

"You say they think I am your consort, but they treat me like I am your thing. That's all your blood means isn't it? That I am yours?"

 

"You are mine." Yon-Rogg said, his voice low and rough.

 

He got off the bed so he could kneel on the floor at her head. She could no longer see him, but she could feel and hear his voice above and behind her. He caught her wrist and held it to the mattress. His thumb rubbing the thin skin over her pulse. She felt like a raw nerve wherever he touched. He kissed her forehead before pressing his own against it. His free hand he ran slowly over her sternum. His warm palm moving over her, up and down. She felt her heart beat slow. His hand dipping beneath the soft fabric of her dress. His fingers reaching for more every time. She felt like a holy relic, still in the warm candle light. Someone worshiping above her. She felt desire too. She wanted more. She wanted to feel his hands everywhere.

She didn't want to talk. She wanted to be quiet. She wanted to feel the heavy desire that hung in the room. She wanted the whisper of his hands moving over her bare skin. She shivered. Yon-Rogg kissed one temple, his hand keeping its slow rhythm against her bare skin.

"Are you cold?" He asked kissing her other temple.

"No" Carol wished her voice sounded steadier and less breatheless, but she felt like she was shaking, like she couldn't remember how to breathe. He lifted her hand from the mattress and kissed her palm.

"What have they been telling you?" He whispered into her ear, his lips brushing the shell.

"Define 'they'?" She said. The situation was so ridiculous she wanted to laugh.

"It doesn't matter who. Something has upset you."

"They told me I am your property on Hala."

"I would have influence over you, yes."

"They said the only way to break the bond is to take the blood of someone else-" Yon-Rogg's hand paused its slow circles, digging into her flesh.

"No." He tipped her head back and kissed her. His tongue moved over her bottom lip before dipping into her mouth. Tasting her. Claiming her. He growled against her mouth, "I would kill us first."

 

"That isn't romantic," she sat up to look at him. He kissed her again. Slower, softer than he had kissed her before.

 

"I wasn't trying to be."

 

"You could try, every once in awhile. Make me feel more like my own person."

 

"The Kree aren't known for our romance" he joined her on the bed again. He cradled her face in one hand while kissing the place her pulse throbbed.

 

"Obviously. Your version of soulmates involves one becoming a slave to the other."

 

"A gross over simplification of an ancient ritual" he said pressing his forehead to her temple. He held her close so he could say the words low in her ear. Each one wound its way down her spine. "You carry my blood, my strength. I trust you to keep it, to guard it so it is never spilled by our enemies. I hold influence over you because there is no atom of your body that is not in my care, under my protection. All of me exists to protect all of you. If we were to part. If you were to be beyond my shelter I would lose myself to your absence. Without you, my body would have no need for strength. You are the wife of my blood, the keeper of my glory, the carrier of my line. There is nothing for me that does not begin and end with you."

He let go of her and began to move away. Carol felt like every muscle was shaking. She didn't know what to do. She wanted him to stay close. She gripped the front of his shirt. She had closed her eyes when he spoke. She was scared to open them and look at him.

"Say that again, and I will consider letting you sleep in the bed."

"Vers, I will never ever say those words again. And it's my bed."

 

* * *

 

Soren walked into the navigation centre. A group of Skrulls were huddled around the command desk.

 

"Why was I called?" Soren asked. She eyed the room anxiously. It radiated fear.

 

"We need you to summon Talos" one engineer answered.

 

"My husband is on a covert mission inside enemy territory. What could possibly require him?"

 

There was a nervous shifting of feet and eyes between the crew.

 

"The navigation system is locked." One engineer finally spoke up.

 

"This doesn't seem like something Talos needs to know. Can't someone here fix it." Soren was on edge. There was something deeply wrong.

 

"The problem is the navigation system is locked on a collision course with a mining planet in Helgentar. We have twenty seven hours until the ship enters the atmosphere. We are not made to land on a planet. We will crash"

 

Soren felt cold.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last quiet night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took soooo long to write. And that's without re-writes. Oh well for my hubris of thinking I could complete this before Endgame came out. I did get close though!
> 
> Hopefully, I will have this tied up in a bow by the end of the weekend, but I have lied to you before.
> 
> Elisha_Boltagon was once again irreplaceable in finishing this chapter and if you haven't read [**Blood Legacy**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18513391) yet I 100% need you to do that. I think it is one of the most interesting, compelling takes of Mar-Vell's character I have read on this site.

The world slowed for Soren before speeding up. She felt the anxiety in the room lapping at her before she pushed it away. This wouldn't happen. She wouldn't let her people die.

 

"Fit as many into the scout ships as possible. We will evacuate as many as we can." She walked to the command console.

 

"I am afraid that won't work. We are completely locked out. We can't regulate the pressure in the hangar or open the bay doors. Even our life systems are running at the lowest possible capacity." The head engineer answered her, pulling up the various programs within the ship's main computer.

 

"Can we inform the planet? Hail them on the comm and see if we can't come to a mutual agreement."

 

"Even if the comm systems were working we would be hailing a Kree colony. There is no reason they wouldn't simply destroy us before we entered the atmosphere."

 

There was a thin bead of sweat running down the man's face. The heat had increased in the navigation centre. Soren realized this was the life systems shutting down.

 

"How did this happen?" She asked. Her daughter was asleep in their cabin. Only a half hour ago she had been soothing her fears for her father. Promising her a beautiful new home soon. What a liar she was.

 

"We don't know. We have been running security scans and they haven't identified any outside threats. Or any internal ones. Whatever is doing this is within the system itself. So central to it that it's invisible to the scans."

 

"A hardware malfunction causing lockdown?" Soren's mind was racing.

 

"Not that we can find."

 

Cold realization dripped down her spine. It was an epiphany that struck with all its aching clarity. Where had her husband got this ship?

 

"How much of the central operating system did we rebuild?" She asked dreading the answer.

 

The engineers looked between them. Looking concerned and sheepish.

 

"What percent?" She repeated.

 

"It wasn't considered a priority."

 

Soren reached behind her for a chair letting herself slowly sink into it. They had bartered for a scavenged ship and no one had secured the central systems. She nodded, feeling like she couldn't pull in enough air to her body. She was numb as she swiveled around to face the console.

 

She began to move through the code of the ship. She dug deeper, pulling away layers of programs. She recognized the older style programming language. The system was out of date. She could find evidence of at least a decade's worth of patching. She told herself it could be one of these. A small error loop cascading into a larger problem. She had to be calm. A ship this old no one would have kept the keys for this long, through so many hands.

 

At last, she came to the heart of the Central System. There were no clues. No indication of who could have programmed the original.

 

There was only one option. It was basic and unrefined. She ducked beneath the command console, finding the access panel. She slid her fingers into the indentations and pulled. The panel came away with a dull clang. Very little was hardwired at this level. The majority of the hardware was stored in the bowels of the ship.

 

There was one piece that would be here. Installed by the Ravagers before trading the ship; the basic translator. Soren squeezed herself under and into the small space. She held out her hand for light. Someone pressed one into her hands. She swept the small beam in the dusty cavity. Until she saw it, a box with a small, blinking red light. It was held together with silver adhesive film and looked like it had been smashed together by a child, but it was capable of translating hundreds of thousands of languages into Basic. Soren stretched, reaching for it, feeling the metal of the console press hard into her back. She felt the wires that were feeding into the translator. She yanked hard and they came away in her hand. The red light died.

 

Soren unfolded herself, ducking her head out from the cramped space. Above her, she heard gasps. She straightened and looked at the screen. All she saw was falling stacks of Kree glyphs.

* * *

  
Yon-Rogg untangled Vers' hand from the front of his shirt. Her eyes were still closed. The candlelight flickered against her skin; the world felt warm and small. Growing up, DarRogg had been lit with bright lights. The newest and finest credits could buy. The walls always seemed like solid blocks of salt or ice. Something untouchable. The house was cold, cavernous and heartless. He wondered why his father's father's father had built a place that made you shiver with cold even when the room was warm. He understood now, that such a place was meant to be lit with candlelight. It warmed the stone, brought it to life.

 

He reached up to touch her face again. She caught his hand, her eyes still closed.

 

"Ask if you can touch me."

 

"Why would I ask?" Yon-Rogg furrowed his brow. Vers opened her eyes, looking at him incredulously.

 

"It's polite," she said a note of disbelief in her voice.

 

"Do you want me to ask from now on?" He said mockingly.

 

"Yes. You have to ask."

 

"Fine, may I touch you?" he forced the words from between his teeth.

 

Vers pursed her lips as if she was thinking.

 

"No"

 

Yon-Rogg grunted. He wanted her. Her one-upping him at dinner, seeing her rumpled in her ridiculous dress, the way she had shivered beneath his hands. The dangerous undercurrent of their mission here; it all stoked the fire within him that never died. He had said the words to her that he never thought he would speak aloud. Words that once they escaped him left a cavity in his chest. He felt like a piece of his shield was worn away and if she chose to strike she could wound him.

 

"Will you touch me?" He asked. He tried to sound relaxed. Like he didn't crave her touch. Vers' lips quirked and she pulled her knees up. She rested her chin on them as if she was considering it.

 

"Maybe. Where do you want to be touched?"

 

"What if I said you could choose?"

 

Vers smiled a wicked smile. She reached out a single finger towards him.

 

"Even if it was here?" She placed that pad of her finger between his eyebrows. Yon-Rogg's lips twitched. Oh clever, infuriating Vers.

 

"Yes"

 

"What about here?" She asked drawing her finger down along the bridge of his nose. Letting it drop off and fall across his lips.

 

"Yes," he said in a hiss. He parted his lips slightly letting his tongue follow the soft pad of her finger. He thought her breath might have caught.

 

Carol felt his tongue trace her finger, his breath heating the skin. She felt powerful. He stared at her with such open desire. Even the tip of her finger seemed to ignite something beneath his skin. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Considering him carefully.

 

"You can touch me," Yon began to move towards her, but she stopped him with her hand. "But only where I say you can."

 

"Vers" he ground out her Kree name. She wanted him, but she was finished being overwhelmed by it.

 

She put her hand on his shoulder pushing him down to the mattress. He fell easily as if there was no resistance left in him. She slid her hand from his shoulder to his chest, fingers slipping beneath the fabric of his shirt.

 

"Can I touch you here?" She asked. He nodded, his eyes fixed on the shadows flickering across the ceiling. "You have to say it"

 

"Yes," it was barely a whisper. As if he had gone far away. She could feel the nervous beating of his heart beneath her hand. He was trying to meditate. And failing.

 

He was dressed in the layered style of the Kree elite classes. At some point, he had discarded his jacket, but he still had the smooth hide vest, dyed an impossibly dark blue and beneath a lighter blue shirt. She knew the shirt would cross his body and tie in the front. She lifted her hand, immediately missing the caress of his heartbeat against her palm. She reached for the fastening of his vest. Her finger tracing the buttons slowly. She raised her eyebrows at him.

 

"Yes," it sounded choked as he dug his hands into the sheets. She shifted so she could better slip the buttons through their openings. She counted in her head, trying not to rush. One, two, three. She pushed the vest open. Just as she pictured she revealed a neat line of ties. She ran a single finger along the line, feeling the ridge of knots. Yon's hand moved to the top one, but she flattened his hand to his chest with her own.

 

"No, only I get to touch you. And only you get to touch me."

 

"Then tell me where I can touch you." His words came out in an impatient rasp, his hand grabbing into the fabric of his shirt.

 

"You will have to wait." She said sagely. "Find pleasure in your discomfort."

 

Yon gave a short bark of laughter, he let her push his hand away. She began untying the knots one by one. They were tied in a way that they could be undone with a single pull. She tugged slowly, enjoying the way the knots slipped apart neatly. She pictured Yon dressing earlier; the practiced precision of his movements. She often forgot the privileged world he came from, even if it wasn't the one where he belonged.

 

"May I?" She asked her hands tracing the neckline of his shirt, her fingers trapped tantalizingly between the layers of fabric. Yon laughed through his gritted teeth.

 

"I swear, Vers if you don't-" his words disappeared in a low guttural sound as she slipped her hand beneath the fold. Smoothing his shirt open. His muscles tensed so hard he practically curled away from her feather-light touch.

 

She moved then, hindered by her dress, swinging one leg over him so she was astride his thighs. He groaned rolling his head back. She smiled wickedly at him, watching the tendons in his neck stretch. She pulled her hands slowly down his torso, feeling the way his body moved beneath her. She stopped above his hips, fanning her fingers across his stomach. He made an animal sound.

 

"Okay, you can touch me," she said, loving the dark, half wild look in his eyes.

 

"Tell me where," he grit out. He sounded like a tightly pulled bowstring. Carol wet her lips, thinking. "Vers, tell me where."

 

She was going to drive him crazy. He wanted to roll them over and punish her with his body. He wanted to rip apart the swirling confectionery of her dress and press himself against the hot flesh beneath. He didn't though, he gave in to whatever game she wanted to play. Kept his eyes trained on the ceiling because looking at her made it harder. Until she was above him. Then there was nowhere to look but at her. Her and her infuriatingly coy smile.

 

She freed his hand from the sheets and pressed it low against her neck. Yon-Rogg sat up on his elbow. With slow controlled motions he moved the curve of his index finger and thumb up and down the column of her throat. He felt the firm muscles move beneath his fingers and the quiver against his hand as she swallowed. She was trusting him at this moment. She had worked him up to an insatiable frenzy then put her life in his hands. He wondered if anyone had ever trusted him so thoroughly. He squeezed, but her eyes never left him. They never even flinched. He relaxed his hand feeling the trembling of her breath.

 

Her hands returned to him. Finding the fall of his trousers. She opened her mouth but he stopped her by pushing the palm of his hand hard against her throat.

 

"Don't ask. Just do," he growled at her. He released her laying back. She moved her hands up his chest again peeling away his clothes. He sat up for her; her arms wrapping around him as she slid the fabric from his body. As her hands traced slowly down his back he felt his defenses melting away leaving him raw and exposed. Vers' arm came around his shoulder and he felt one foot burrow beneath his thigh. Anticipating her he rolled them so he was above her. He braced himself so his body hovered over hers. He didn't touch her. Her hands found the fastening of his trousers. His body shook as she began to slide them off his hips, her body curving into him so she could reach. Her face was so close to his. He hung his head, pressing his forehead into her shoulder. At last, he had to roll away so he could remove them completely. They fell heavily to the floor.

 

Carol felt like her dress had been slowly tying her in knots. It was wrapped around her legs and bunched in strange places. She slid off the bed and shook it out. Yon watched her with the dark look in his eyes. A look, Carol found, she wanted to provoke. His hand was white knuckled into the sheet. He was wonderfully naked and golden in the candlelight. She reached for the fastenings of her dress.

 

"No" Yon's voice was choked and low. "Let me take it off you."

 

She looked down at it and smiled.

 

"I don't know how you got it on me so -" She looked back at up at him helplessly.

 

He sat up and strode towards her. His movements lean and smooth. He stepped in close to her and she could feel the heat pouring off if him through the thin fabric of her dress. His fingers found the fastenings and fiddled for a moment. She felt a tug on the fabric before he gave a short laugh and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. It was stuck, she realized. She laughed and wrapped her arms around him, feeling the delicious length of him.

 

"Just tear it," she murmured biting his ear lobe.

 

* * *

 

Soren and Dezan, her chief engineer, were staring at each other through the flickering blue of a rendering of the ship's schematic. She had dismissed everyone else to go be with their families. She would release Dezan to his family soon.

 

"Central Systems' hardware is located here," Dezan said poking a finger into the wavering projection. "But it is a sealed system. There is very little access to the actual parts."

 

Soren nodded. They had come to the conclusion that the only way for the entire system to be locked down was if a simulated user was locking it. Not a program or malware but a free-thinking entity that could predict their movements through the commands.

 

Neither had spoken their fears out loud, but it hung between them. They were on a Kree ship. The only answer was that some outdated form of the Kree Supreme Intelligence was on board. If they were right, if the unspoken fear was true, then it had to have a physical form somewhere within the ship. The Kree built this ship for themselves they would not have tried to hide it, so it must be near the power core in the belly of the ship. Soren zoomed in on that section of the schematic, moving through the walls to the innards of the beast.

 

"I will have to find a way in," she said determinedly. She felt Dezan's aura clench with fear. He was a good man, smart and organized, but certainly not brave.

 

"You could get trapped like an orloni in a maze." He was pleading with her.

 

"It is our only hope." She had already decided. "How are the repairs to the craft progressing?"

 

"They have already removed the grapple and they are repairing the seal."

 

"Good" Soren nodded. She was grateful Talos had not damaged the ship more. It was the only craft they could trust while in the belly of the Kree behemoth.

 

* * *

 

 

Vers was settled between his legs, head resting on his chest. They had stayed like this afterward, their bodies languid and warm. As Yon-Rogg curled his arms around her, he felt every inch of her skin melting into his own. They felt fused in the dimming light. She was quiet if it wasn't for the way she continued fanning her fingers over his chest he would have thought she was asleep.

 

"Did you know Mar-Vell is here?" Yon-Rogg felt her question as much as he heard it. He moved his hand to stroke her hair.

 

"Yes"

 

"Is that why you didn't want to come?" She asked turning so she could look up at him.

 

"Don't undervalue how bad the Skrull's plan was. The complete lack of preparation- Ow! Did you just bite me?" Vers had sunken her teeth into the thick muscle of his chest.

 

"Yes," she said grinding her knuckle into his freshly marked skin. He curled around her trying to knock her off him. "We could have had a good plan if you'd opened your dumb mouth."

 

He pitched them over so she was under him. He interlocked his fingers and pushed them into her sternum, effectively trapping her beneath his body. She immediately pushed against him, he felt her hands ineffectively trying to find purchase on his thighs.

 

"And what would have changed about your plan?" He looked at her narrowed eyes and the hard line of her mouth. Vers' liked to act tough, but he could see through it. Right now, he could see the gears ticking in her head.

 

If Carol could have moved her knee slightly to the left she was sure she could neutralize Yon. She hated his question. If she had known Mar-Vell was here nothing could have stopped her coming. If she had known Yon's brother was the Keeper it didn't change anything. It actually made it easier.

 

"You should have told me anyway."

 

"How can I express my profound apologies to you?" He began kissing her neck, shifting so he could part her knees. She felt the friction as he began sliding down her body. She locked her arms around him and pushed hard rolling them back. He gave easily to her, grunting as his back hit the mattress. It was a low satiated sound. She pushed herself up so she was astride him again. She could feel him beneath her hips, ready for her again. She leaned forward, framing his face with her hands. She brushed her lips over his and he tilted his chin to catch her mouth better.

 

"I'm hungry" she murmured against his mouth. He made a low sound of agreement. "Are you hungry too?"

 

"Yes," he said before biting her lower lip and sucking it into his mouth.

 

"You should do something about that."

 

"I should," he agreed running his hands over her thighs and hips, catching her mouth again. He was certain he would never be free of his hunger for her.

 

"So you agree with my plan?" She freed her mouth from his, moving her hips in a small circle and running her fingers through his hair. His hands came up to grip her ribs, thumbs grazing beneath her breasts.

 

"What plan?" He asked trying to reclaim her mouth. She pushed herself just out of his reach.

 

"That you should go get food." She felt his hands still.

 

"You should have eaten dinner when you had the chance" he chided her. Wrapping his arms around her, pressing a hand to her center back pushing, her against him again. She avoided his searching mouth, nuzzling her nose to his.

 

"I thought caring for me was your purpose. I am the wife of your blood-" he groaned in annoyance sitting up beneath her.

 

"Will you make me regret my words, Vers?"

 

"Will you starve me to get your way?"

 

He gave in. Shifting out from under her so she could curl into the sheets. He searched for his pants among the chaos of pillows, bedding and Vers' torn dress on the floor.

 

Yon-Rogg walked through the dark halls barefoot and bare-chested. He knew the way to the kitchens if this was the true DarRogg. He thought there might be food left in the dining room although he was not eager to return after he had escaped it hours ago.

 

Yon-Rogg didn't want to admit his brother had lost his mind here. He had been able to pass off his strange mood at dinner as a sort of twisted jealousy. Xe, when they were younger, had always coveted what small things Yon-Rogg had. It was the way of little brothers, but that had changed in this strange mausoleum he had built to the Rogg family.

 

_"The problem is, Yon," he said sweeping his arms to show the grandeur of the room. "The Rogg clan is at an end. Father is dead, I am trapped here and you, well you are a bastard."_

_The words had stung. Not because it was new for him to be called a bastard, but because they came from Xe. It was rarely spoken of aloud between the two, except when Xe was losing an argument. It had always worked when they were young. Yon-Rogg would yield immediately when his brother began detailing whatever new theory he had picked up at the Academy about Yon-Rogg's birth._

_Unlike Xe, Yon-Rogg did not make friends wherever he went. It was not in his nature. His keen mind and his natural grace made him quick to learn military theory and practical skills. Since he couldn't understand why anyone would struggle he was not kind or patient. Except for Vers. He was patient with her even if it went against his very nature. And Xe-Rogg._

_They both seemed to constantly travel between two poles; devotion and resentment. Currently, Xe was vacillating so fast between the two he was unpredictable and dangerous. He wanted Yon-Rogg here to witness him, but he wanted him subservient to his slightest whim. Yon-Rogg could not stomach what he was being asked to witness._

_Xe-Rogg had banished Vers from the room when he brought forward the metal cask. Yon-Rogg had not laid eyes on it since his father's death. It was meant to be poured into the earth at DarRogg, the real DarRogg, instead, it was here. And it was intact. Or mostly intact._

_"The replicator is not limited to food, brother. It can replicate anything we have a firm picture of. If you can imagine it, craft it in your mind, in enough detail then the replicator can produce it. That includes life." He looked at the serving girl who was knelt before him. "I have told her many stories of Father. I have tried to craft as accurate a picture as I can. So far our attempts have been disappointing."_

_The serving girl hung her head._

_"Xe, father has earned his rest with our ancestors-"_

_"My ancestors," Xe-Rogg interjected. Yon-Rogg grit his teeth. He noticed a slight wobble in his brother. "You will see brother, all that I can create."_

_His brother walked to the cask and unscrewed the lid. Yon-Rogg felt cold as he saw his brother pluck a piece of bread from the table and dip it into the blackened blood of his long-dead father. Xe-Rogg carried it, dripping, to his kneeling servant. He lifted her chin and held it against her lips. Yon-Rogg felt the visceral contraction of his stomach as she opened her mouth for him, her eyes blank and unseeing. If he had successfully eaten food Yon-Rogg would have been sick. However, all his empty stomach could do was clench and flip._

_"He was strong my father," Xe began. He pulled the Krylorian to her feet and walked her stumbling body to the centre of the room. She ignited the replicator, blue light glowing from her hands. She started to move them in the air as Xe-Rogg spoke, his eyes fevered and his blue skin damp with sweat._

_The vague shape of a man began to form in the middle of the room, a shapeless blue cloud of energy with interconnecting lines of white light. Xe-Rogg circled it, his gaze was intense. Yon-Rogg was horrified with the spectacle. Soon the replicator began to spark against the girl's skin. She whimpered._

_"Don't stop" Xe-Rogg commanded, but as a single loud crack of electricity broke the air the blue light disappeared. Xe-Rogg howled in frustration. He threw himself into his high backed chair, slumping over._

 

As Yon-Rogg walked through the empty halls his bare feet made no sound, but his soles ached with the cold of the stone. He wanted to help his brother. He wanted to ferry Xe away to Herkarsis or one of the other worlds which specialized in healing. Maybe once he was healed he could be smuggled back to Hala where he could live out the remainder of his days caring for their mother and the true DarRogg.

 

Yon-Rogg knew one thing for certain his brother could not fall into the hands of the SI. Especially if Talos and Vers were successful in any part of their mission.

 

He was nearing the dining room. He could hear the sound of voices and see the spark of blue light.

 

* * *

 

Soren carried her daughter in her arms. She could feel tiny arms around her neck and the soft nuzzling into her shoulder of her sleeping daughter. They had twenty hours left until impact. The repairs to Carol's craft had just been completed an hour before. They had begun loading the children on the ship. Soren's daughter was last.

 

Soren boarded the tight craft. Small mattresses had been pulled from unoccupied cabins and spread on the floor of the galley. The cupboards had been well stocked from their own supplies and the water tanks recharged. Each surface seemed to have a child tucked into it. Finally, Soren found a small corner that was empty. She carefully lay her daughter on the floor. She had been given a powerful sleeping draft, as had all the other children, but her body was fighting it. The ship was eerily quiet among the curled up bodies of all the Skrull children. Her daughter fussed and Soren rubbed a soothing hand on her chest.

 

"You need to go to sleep, my smallest love," she cooed watching her daughter settle down into the mattress. "When you wake up Auntie Carol will be here."

 

"Auntie Carol?" Her small voice was thick with sleep.

 

"Yes. She is going to take you somewhere wonderful." She stroked her daughter's flushed cheek. She was warm and soft. Soren knew she had to leave now or she never would.

 

They had done all they could for their future. The ship had an automated jump programmed for moments before the crash. If they could not save their home Carol's ship would take their children far from the Helgentar system and then begin sending a distress signal to Carol's comm.

 

Until then, Soren had work to do. She left the small craft feeling as if every cell in her body was fracturing away, that she was still wrapped around her daughter and every step she took broke her more. She would not cry. Her people could not see her cry. They would cry her tears for her.

* * *

 

Yon-Rogg was immediately cautious. He skirted the edge of the hallway, the cold stone skimming over his back. He could see from his position that the room was sparsely lit and the flickering blue light was casting three distinct shadows on the wall. The voices were barely murmurs in the dark, but he could hear the distinct sound of giggling.

 

The Krylorians were in there.

 

Yon-Rogg reached the door and peaked in the room. He saw the two Krylorians and the traitor sitting around the table. A third sister wore the replicator, she stood at the head of the table and the three watching her seemed to be giving her encouragement and advice.

 

"Shape it with your hands, think as if you are holding it," Mar-Vell said miming the motion of cupping a ball in her hands. "It will take on whatever qualities you imagine so you must think with all five senses."

 

Just as a small round fruit appeared between the girl's hands Yon-Rogg entered the room. Four pairs of eyes turned to him, everyone froze in place.

 

"Do they not lock you up, traitor?" His voice was low. It was an offense to his brother that she was just casually sitting in his dining room surrounded by the leftovers of his dinner.

 

Mar-Vell considered Yon-Rogg carefully. It was the first time she had seen him in seven years. Her memories of that time so foggy she was not sure what was real and what was delirium. She could see him now though, rumpled with white scars bursting across his chest. He had bonded with Carol when she was weak and incapable. To Mar-Vell he was the worst kind of villain; the kind that robbed people of power. Made them prisoners to their own bodies and minds. She distracted herself by picking up a slice of cheese from the table, she wouldn't give him the pleasure of seeing her anger. She took a bite from the cheese, savouring the taste of it; watching his anger tick up.

 

"No one eat this one, the bastard made me angry just as I finished it" the girl grunted, placing the seemingly fine moragu fruit on the table. Its sunset red flesh gleamed in the low light. Yon-Rogg furrowed his brow at the crass words falling from the beautiful girl's lips.

 

"Skrull, is that you in there?"

 

Talos removed the replicator from him before shivering back into his true form. The Krylorians gasped in unison before breaking out into hushed applause. Talos looked away from Yon-Rogg smiling at the girls. He did a little bow. He morphed quickly into his Kree form and sat at the head of the table. He did not answer Yon-Rogg but began picking at the meal in front of him. He adopted the same blank benevolent expression Mar-Vell had.

 

"Do you have a reason for disrupting our little party?" Talos asked popping a small round fruit in his mouth.

 

"Vers is hungry," Yon-Rogg answered him, nodding his head to the table in front of him.

 

"So, you just slipped out into the night?"

 

"She was hungry and preferred to stay in bed. I am sure you have had similar missives from your wife."

 

Talos impaled the side of meat he had been cutting with the long golden carving knife. His calm was slipping.

 

"Do not even consider comparing my marriage to whatever sick game you are playing down the hall"

 

"Vers is enjoying our game-"

 

"Not another word out of the both of you" Mar-Vell interjected. "Girls, please bring a plate to Carol. We have better things to discuss."

 

Gret and Greet stood up quickly assembling a plate of food and collecting replicator. They curtsied with their strange empty-eyed smiles and minced out of the room.

* * *

 

Soren wound her way down into the guts of the ship. Only the emergency lights were flickering and everything grew darker as she moved deeper. The air was growing hot and humid around her. The heating systems were out of whack. The air here should be kept constantly just above freezing so none of the systems overheated. It was imperative to the operation of the ship that such a delicate balance of pressure and temperature was maintained. More terrifying than the lockout of their navigation systems or the lurking of the SI was the irreparable damage that could be happening to the delicate life system of the ship. Even if they survived, the metal could become too fatigued to survive a leap out of the Helgentar system. Or their cloaking could fail. They could avoid catastrophe, but be left exposed to attack.

 

At last, she stood before the massive metal structure that housed the ship's hardware. It was sealed tight just as Dezan had said. It was also at least three storeys tall. Inside were not rooms but a twisted framework of wires and processors. She would have to climb blindly through the mess in hopes of identifying the physical centre of the SI within the ship. In the dark. She had been brave in the navigation centre, she had dismissed Dezan's concerns. Now she stood before the edifice that controlled the ship and she felt dwarfed by her mission.

 

She secured the bag of tools slung across her chest and checked for her supplies of water and light. She took a deep breath and began to run her hands along the metal shell, looking for the ridge of the access panel.

 

* * *

 

"What if my brother finds us here? Nothing about this is discreet." Yon-Rogg growled. Every aspect of their plans was terrible right down to where they chose to hold court.

 

"Your brother will not wake. Neither will his men." Mar-Vell said matter of factly twisting a knife into the smooth marble of the table.

 

"Have you done something to him?" Yon-Rogg's nerve endings were alive with suspicion.

 

"Any man with vice leaves himself open for attack," Mat-Vell said coolly. She was losing her patience with him.

 

"His servants are under your influence. Have you convinced them to betray him?"

 

"Slaves do not require convincing to undermine their masters."

 

"The Kree do not keep slaves." Yon-Rogg ground out. "We are the breaker of bonds. Learn your history, traitor."

 

"What history?" Talos interjected. "I have seen no truth from your people."

 

"You say the Kree are the breaker of bonds. What bonds have you broken son of Ter-Rogg? We fight to break the bonds of war, to free people from the slavery of fear. And you have fought us at every turn."

 

"You have a vendetta against my family."

 

"Oh Commander, I wonder why?" Mar-Vell mocked him and Yon-Rogg bristled. Talos tensed ready to spring forward if the need should arise.

 

Their voices had grown more heated as they spoke, but all kept to a hushed whisper so that the room buzzed as if alive with hornets.

 

"Can we all agree to stop meeting without each other?" All three turned to the door as Carol came in. She carried her plate of food and was wrapped in Yon-Rogg's shirt. His eyes roved her body as she walked into the room. She saw him roll his shoulders. "We need to get it together and we need to do it now."

 

"Carol's right," Mar-Vell agreed. She gestured Carol to a seat at the table. She sat and fell upon her food. The other's joined her. The room was tense but quiet. Mar-Vell began arranging plates. Yon-Rogg's eyes watched her carefully. As Mar-Vell completed her arrangement all eyes had drifted to her.

 

"Once we start there won't be much time. My lab is here" she indicated a small serving plate set back from the other plates. "And this is DarRogg. As far as I know, none of the guards have realized what I have hidden here, but they will know where to search for me. You two will need to subdue or eliminate as many as possible before they reach us."

 

She waved her hand at Talos and Yon-Rogg placing two goblets among a cluster of nine grapes.

 

"What about me?" Carol asked breaking apart a piece of flatbread. Mar-Vell placed four small moragu fruits on her lab.

 

"You will be in my lab with me and the girls. I need your power in order to move the planet-"

 

"Did you say 'move the planet'?" Yon-Rogg interjected. Three pairs of eyes turned to look at him. Talos grinned at him.

 

"Finally something you don't know, Kree. We aren't just going to capture Onigaia. We are going to steal it."

* * *

 

Xe-Rogg slept fitfully. He had been haunted on Onigaia by nightmares of Hala consumed in flames. Of his mother, crying amongst the embers of DarRogg. All the while he was trapped here, prescient of the dangers that lurked for his family while he was gone. When news of his father's death reached Onigaia he had been celebrating the completion of his vision. He had looked forward to sharing the triumph with his father. Show him that the Rogg clan had laid claim to a whole planet.

His father could not die just as he was ready to begin.

Then his brother had disappeared and he felt the loving light of the Supreme Intelligence die on the Rogg Clan. They turned cruel. Without his father to shelter them, and with Yon-Rogg's unusual disappearance Xe-Rogg knew their control was slipping. There would be no honour left for them on Hala. Thank glory he had been prepared. All Onigaia needed was his father resurrected and his mother brought to him and they would be ready to begin anew.

 

Xe-Rogg woke from another such dream. This time it was his own DarRogg that was in flames. His brother was at the centre of his dream. He held in his hands a flaming sword that spoke to Xe-Rogg with the voice of a woman. They were laying waste to his precious home. Xe-Rogg breathed a sigh of relief when he opened his eyes in the moonlit darkness of his room. He was slick with sweat and his body held the tension of the dream deep in his muscles. He realized there was someone standing at the foot of his bed. He sat up pulling his covers tight to his chest.

 

"Who is there?"

 

"Don't you know me, Son?"Xe-Rogg relaxed it was the spectre of his father come to visit him again.

 

"Good evening, Father. I did not expect you would visit me so soon."

 

"I sense trouble in you, Xe." His father's voice was thick with concern.

 

"I fear my brother doesn't understand my vision. I thought to show him kindness. To be compassionate for his low birth but-"

 

"Is your brother here?" His father asked, his posture changed. Xe-Rogg knew his father did not want Yon-Rogg to join them on Onigaia. It was to be their new beginning, but Xe-Rogg desired his brother's usefulness. He would be an excellent vassal to the estate. Loyal beyond the measure of a paid steward. Controlled by his own desire for their love.

 

"Yes Father, Yon is here."


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my friends, this is the end. I hope when you see the word count has jumped by about 13000 words you know why this took so long
> 
> I have added a chapter 18 to the count just to remind y'all Marvel always has a post credit scene.
> 
> This one gets a little gory. As this is an M rating and we have all agreed we aren't impressionable teens I haven't added more tags. If you think there something that really needs a CW let me know.
> 
> On a personal note, this has been a wonderful time. I have loved talking to every single one of you. My tumblr is leightoningstrike if you want to talk more or send me your prompts etc. Be warned I am an old lady and I don't 100% understand how to use it. I really hope this last chapter doesn't disappoint and that all of my readers feel as appreciated as everyone has made me feel.  
> Love love love DH

When Yon-Rogg returned to their room the candles had been replenished and their armour was placed neatly on the bench. Even the bed had been remade and Vers' torn dress ferried away. Gret and Greet had been there.  
Yon-Rogg didn't know what to do. His skin felt too tight and the room was tense with impending disaster. He could feel Vers behind him. He didn't want to look at her. Even if he could keep the words at bay his face would give it away; Mar-Vell had lost her mind.

 

_He had listened to what they had to say, tamping down on his disbelief. Holding back his derision, until they stopped and he found he could not move passed the heart of their plan._

_"You think you are going to steal a planet?" He had asked incredulously._

_There were general nods around the table. The traitor ran her fingers along the rim of one of the goblets._

_"I have been preparing for this day for seven years. I can understand your skepticism, but you are either in or you are out." She flicked over the empty goblet so it fell on its side among the grapes. "You are the one who will contribute the least. So I don't care either way."_

_"Am I just supposed to take your word for it? 'You take care of the soldiers, I'll fly the planet'? Is that supposed to inspire confidence?"_

_"You know your part of the plan. I shouldn't be expected to lower myself by explaining the rest to you."_

_Yon-Rogg stood up then. He stormed out of the room. He had heard Vers follow, but he did not turn to look back at her, lest she vanish like a figment of his desires._

Carol was gripped by the sense all was not as it should be. They should not be this divided before attempting the impossible. When Yon-Rogg stood, stony-faced, and left the room she had looked to Mar-Vell. Her mentor was also seething. She was not used to being questioned, but more than that Carol saw she was scared. The set to her jaw, the hardness in her eyes. It was not just anger it was self-doubt. In a backward way, Carol found it reassuring. Doubt meant Mar-Vell was thinking. Even if her words seemed impossible, even if Carol felt a rotting knot of doubt in her own stomach she trusted in Mar-Vell's ability to pull off a miracle.

 

Carol followed Yon-Rogg to their room. Everything had been reset. As if the last hour had never happened. Except it had. She knew if she peeled away Yon's shirt her ribs would be stained blue with the pressure of his hands when he had surged into her one last time. Gripping her hard so she could not escape the throbbing heat of him. Heat she still felt deep inside her. Yon was still marked by her, a blossoming ring on his shoulder where she had sunk her teeth into him to quiet her own sounds. They would fade slowly, by dawn it would be like they had never touched.

 

Vers was hovering behind him.

 

"I know what you're thinking," she said. Her voice was taut.

 

"You don't." He muttered. He began pulling aside the freshly made bed. Steadfastly not looking at her.

 

She joined him on the other side of the sheet, removing the bedding from the tight tucks at the corners. He was forced to look at her.

 

"You are thinking Mar-Vell has lost her mind and we are all idiots for listening to her." Yon-Rogg scoffed. "I think so too."

 

Yon-Rogg looked at her in shock. He felt a mix of triumph and rage spike through him. She agreed. She was not wholly under the witch's spell, but he was enraged she would risk herself anyway.

 

"Then why follow her? Why sacrifice yourself to this idiocy?" Yon-Rogg beat the pillow he was fluffing more intensely than he meant to. He hated the way Vers looked lost for words. She should know. If only she would be consumed by her own conviction he could let it go. He could trust her to persevere, but she was looking at him so helplessly he was terrified.

 

"What else is there? If it isn't this it will be somewhere else, some other time. We are facing something so much larger. We need a miracle. We need something impossible to happen. Even if I don't understand it, even if I can't justify it, I believe in Mar-Vell."

 

He wanted to shake her. He wanted to tell her he couldn't blindly believe as she did. This plan separated them. They would not be standing side by side. When they parted it could be for the last time and he couldn't do that on so incorporeal a plan. He had abandoned the bedding to sit on the bed. His head in his hands. He couldn't look at her across their bed and know this could be the last night. Knowing they were choosing the plan that would kill them when there was always evacuation. There could be better plans, other planets. Onigaia was not their last hope.

 

She came around the bed to look at him. She stood in front of him barefoot, wrapped in his shirt; her body still carried the warmth of their mating. He could not look at her, but he tapped one leg impatiently.

 

She put one hand over his fidgeting thigh. She knelt in front of him. She would not be avoided.

 

"Promise me tomorrow you will go to the ship. Promise that no matter what once we are clear you will go. That you won't come for me." She looked at him with her warm pleading eyes.

 

"I won't leave you," he said low in his throat. "You don't know what will happen once you power the core."

 

"No I don't, but I need to know you are safe. I have to believe you will be somewhere safe."

 

The one part of the plan that had been revealed to him was that there would come a moment when being on the surface of Onigaia would no longer be viable. No matter how many guards were left Talos and he had to get to their ship to brace for movement. Any remaining guards would be killed by the jump.

 

"This plan separates us, Vers" he could contain the words no longer. Not with her looking at him. "I cannot promise I won't come for you. Don't make me promise."

 

He could tell she was frustrated. Her mouth was a thin line her lips sucked close to her teeth as if she had a hundred words she refused to say. She stood up and turned from him. He caught her hand between his. She began to pull away.

 

"I wanted everything to go back to how it was," he confessed. She stopped. He felt her stiffen. "I know that on Hala it was different for you. That it felt like a lie, but to me, it was when I was happiest."

 

He pressed a kiss to her palm and let her go. She immediately moved away from him. She wrapped her arms around herself. He began to leave. He could not stay here.

 

He was almost at the door when a bolt of energy singed passed his ear and blew a hail of marble chips from the wall. He froze.

 

"You don't get to run away, Yon," her voice was dark.

 

He turned to look at her. She was still curled into herself, partially turned away from him.

 

"Did you just fire at me _blind_?" He demanded.

 

"Did you just walk away after telling me brainwashing me on an alien planet was ' _the happiest time of your life_ '?" She fired back her voice ticking up.

 

"My wording may have been poor, but it doesn't make it any less true," Yon-Rogg lifted his hands in peace, taking a step towards her.

 

"That's sick, Yon. You are sick." She turned completely away from him.

 

"I had you, Vers. Someone looked at me and they didn't see my family or my past. You saw me. You let yourself need me. You let me mold you. And I could keep you safe. Now, now I have no control. I feel everything I felt on Hala, I feel it more, but I can't keep you by my side."

 

"I was a pet, Yon. A science experiment." Vers' voice was shaking. "How can I forgive what happened on Hala? I loved you, I trusted you and it was all a lie. How can any of the good moments be real if it was all based on a lie?"

 

He couldn't answer her. They were two bodies locked in orbit, chained by unseen forces, but if they were to come together it would destroy them.

 

"I can't undo the past. I can't undo what I feel for you. I can't be anything but in your thrall. I will do anything for you." He felt weak saying the words aloud.

 

"Then promise me you will go to the ship. Promise me that if tomorrow is the last day you will protect the Skrulls for me."

 

"I will," he felt the words pulled out of him as if they were made of hot coals. He saw her shoulders relax slightly. She still could not look at him. He took a step towards her.

 

"If you get to ask me for the impossible and I will agree to it then I have one impossible thing to ask of you." His voice was tight. This must be the last night because he had lost all sense of himself.

 

"What?"

 

"Believe that I thought I was doing the right thing." She scoffed.

 

"Your lies made me into a liar, Yon. A liar and a villain."

 

"That's why this is my impossible thing." He had not realized the distance between them had closed. How closely he had drifted to her. He placed his hands on her shoulders. He expected her to flinch, his own body braced for impact. Instead she made a sad, angry sound; half laugh, half sob. She turned in his arms and let her fingers trace the scars the SI had left across his body.

 

"Just for tonight I will believe your impossible thing," she looked at him with narrowed eyes and her lips in a half smile. "But this conversation isn't over. Not until I say it is."

 

"Then I will have you again before we part," his voice was low and Vers' wet her lips. She nodded slightly the barest inclination of her head.

 

His hand came up to the ties of his shirt. She grabbed it before he could begin fighting with the haphazard knots she had tied.

 

"Don't you have a lesson for me?" she asked flashing her eyes at him.

 

"A lesson?" He pulled her hand to his mouth kissing the back of it. His eyes swept around the room as if he was thinking. He turned her in his arms so she was facing the bed and he was behind her. His hands found the ties to his shirt and he began tugging them open one by one. "Shall I show you how a Kree woman prepares her warrior for battle?"

 

Yon pulled loose the last knot and slid his hands under his shirt to touch her skin. He slid it from her shoulders so she could feel his chest against her back.

 

"What if his woman is also a warrior?" Carol asked trying to turn in the circle of his arms to see his face.

 

He bit the flesh at her shoulder making his way towards her neck. He spoke low in her ear.

 

"Then you will have the immediate benefit of watching me apply the lesson," he scooped her up and walked them towards the bed.

* * *

  
Soren did not know how long she had been climbing. The steam in the air had long since soaked her clothes. It was too hot inside the Central System and dark. She kept moving upwards and forwards hoping to find the super core. If she were to build this place that is where she would locate an AI. Close to the power and close to the climate control.

 

The innards of the ship were jumbled and disorganized. It seemed every owner since the Kree had meddled in some way or another. Wires hung low like jungle vines, new pieces of hardware were poorly grafted onto the old. When she moved her beam back and forth the framework glittered with miles of silver adhesive film. She swore if she survived this she would never let Talos buy a ship unsupervised again. There were also newer repairs patched in. These would have been Dezan and his crew. It made her sick to think they had been inside here, so close to the viper's nest.

 

She pulled herself onto another platform. The metal was warm beneath her body and the air was thick with the miasma of sweating plastic. She allowed her body to rest a moment. She breathed shallowly against the stench and the heat. She uncapped her water and drank carefully. She would have to ration herself if she were to survive inside this superheated edifice for the next eighteen hours. Or so she guessed. She had brought a tracker with her, but it wasn't properly shielded against the inside of the Central System. The competing fields were causing the screen to jitter and warp. She didn't trust the count down it showed her. She sunk into the hard metal of the frame, feeling the ache of her muscles. It had been a long time since she had pushed herself to such limits.

 

She reached out with her mind. She could feel the low potent sleep that held her daughter. It was deep, dark and inescapable. It would hold her for the next twenty hours. It felt wrong to incapacitate her child, but the thought of her terrified and alone was worse. Next, she reached for her husband. She couldn't feel him as clearly. She couldn't guess what he was thinking and feeling. All she knew was when she tested the bonds of the universe, thought of her deep unending love for him she felt something solid and alive in the universe answer her back. She had dreaded for years the day that all she found was emptiness. She never anticipated that it would be her that would be lost; that their safe haven would become the source of their greatest threat. She closed her eyes feeling the moisture roll down her back.

 

"Inamorata, you should not be here," Talos spoke to her. Soren's eyes flew open. He could not be here.

* * *

  
Carol woke before the light broke over Onigaia. Yon was stretched out beside her asleep. It was good that he was resting, she thought, today was going to be hell. He had asked her to believe that he had done only what he thought was right. She had agreed to; for one night. Now it was the day. She was no longer bound by that promise. She could hate him if she wanted to. As she watched the small rise and fall of his breath stretching the white scars on his back she realized she had to learn to accept she would never know what Yon did for his benefit and what he did for hers. Even Yon probably didn't know.

 

As he carried her across the room he had told her that before battle a warrior was to rest. To be still and conserve his energy for battle. It was the way of their women to coax them from their meditation. That one last guaranteed night of pleasure had to be earned. Buried beneath his usual Kree pontificating was something simpler; the Kree only give what they first receive. He had dropped her on the bed, her head toward the foot-board. He had reached to pull off the scant remainder of her clothes. She had fallen similarly upon the clasps of his pants. She wondered if there would come a time when they would be together and it would not feel like lightning up and down her spine. She could not ignore what felt so right.

 

When they were naked he had rested his head back on the pillows, coaxing her leg over him.

 

Carol pulled her knees together. Remembering would not make leaving him any easier. She counted to ten. She would watch him for ten more seconds then she would leave.

 

She dressed as quietly as possible and slipped from the room.

 

The dawn was purple across the rolling fields of DarRogg's grounds. Mar-Vell was nowhere to be seen, but Greet waited for her.

 

"You are to follow me, my Lady." Greet inclined her head to indicate they would be crossing the green.

 

"I really prefer Carol." The girl looked at her with a slightly void expression. She wondered if it was asking too much for Greet to trust her so soon. They began to cross the grounds.

 

"Won't they notice you are gone?" Carol asked Greet's ramrod straight back.

 

"They will soon," she agreed. Carol felt a knot in her stomach. She regretted she had not woken Yon up. Seeing him in his armour would have reassured her.

 

They reached a body of water. It was beautiful, the air above the water shimmered with mist. It was hard to believe chaos was about to break loose.

 

Greet walked nimbly along the shoreline until she made it to the long flat rocks. She sat on one dangling her legs into the crevice before letting her body drop down. Carol caught up with her in time to watched her white-clad body slip into the earth. Carol looked into the darkness. The girl was gone. 

* * *

  
Talos moved through the halls of the strange backward prison in the Krylorian's body. He was tense; today was their impossible day. He had resented the decision to retire for the night instead of springing immediately into action. For his part, he saw no reason to wait. If anything, an attack when the house was asleep made the most sense, but he understood there were things that could not be rushed, all of this was happening very quickly already.

 

The Krylorian girl, Gret, was the perfect disguise for what he was about to do. She could pass unnoticed through any room in the house and no one would mark it. They would also not realize the real Gret was absent. Mar-Vell had use of her and Talos had watched them steal across the grounds just before dawn. Watching their two small bodies slip across the dewy ground he had reached out in his mind to his beloved. He could never feel her the way she could feel him. His cellular empathy leaned towards the empirical rather than the emotional, but he liked to picture her sitting with their daughter or bent over her notes when suddenly she would know he was thinking of her. He wanted to tell her how beautiful their home would be. He wanted to rest his head against her too thin stomach and whisper words of love and children. He wanted to give his daughter so many siblings she could not keep track of them all. More than anything he wanted to see his girls safe.

 

While he was lost in his revery he saw two more figures move across the lawn. The short steps of the other twin and the long confident strides of Carol. If they were successful he owed a debt of honour to the Terran. Even if they failed he owed so much to her. Enough that he could bear a bitter peace with the Kree she had chosen.

 

No matter what Mar-Vell said of half-formed bonds he knew devotion when he saw it. You do not get to choose who you love, he reminded himself. In fact the more impossible the love the harder it was to let go. Every species had the same foolish heart. If today succeeded he would owe a debt to the Kree as well.

 

With Carol in place, all that remained was their own task. Talos hoped to neutralize as many guards as possible before they even realized they were under attack.

 

Talos stepped beneath the colonnade and made his way to the Kree's room. When he slipped into the room he saw the Kree asleep. It was shameful that he was still abed when the others had already taken their place. Talos crept across the room and knelt on the floor next to the bed. He tried to adopt the wide-eyed stare of the Krylorian.

 

"Master," he said in her high pitched voice. "You have slept too late, Master"

 

The Kree roused quickly, taking in a sharp breath. Talos saw him instinctively reach for Carol. His hand found only the mattress. He sat up, the heel of his hand rubbing his eye.

 

"Where is Vers?" His voice was thick with sleep and accusation.

 

"She is already in position. Did your woman not wake you?" Talos mocked him. The Kree shot him a dirty look.

 

"Do you enjoy hiding behind women's faces?" He sneered at Talos.

 

"Says the man whose people hide their villainy behind a machine." Talos stood and walked away from the bed. This was not right. They could not take the day like this. He turned to speak his peace but was greeted only by the unclad pink skin of the Kree. Talos quickly turned away. "For the sake of Skrullos, have some shame."

 

The Kree looked down his body as he pulled his compression suit on.

 

"What exactly do I have to be ashamed of?" He asked.

 

"The Terran is like a daughter to me and I have been trying to avoid thinking of you two together in that way."

 

"You would be hard pressed to think of a way we haven't been together." The Kree answered smugly and Talos wished to batter his face against the headboard.

 

"Enough. The day is too young for me to slaughter you for disrespect." Talos held up his hands. "I would have peace spoken between us before we fight together."

 

"What peace can there be between a Skrull and a Kree?" He asked fastening the gauntlets of his armor.

 

"A mutual agreement then. Carol will only be released from her promise once we have a home."

 

"And will you promise to never call on her to fight your battles again?" The Kree looked at him through the side of his eye.

 

"I have never had the luxury of turning away help. It is my wish that my people would be strong enough to stand against any threat alone."

 

He could see the Kree contemplating him. At last, he reached a hand out to Talos. The Kree's hand engulfed the small Krylorian hand. They shook on it.

 

"I suppose you have a plan?" The Kree asked making the final adjustments to his armour.

 

"We kill as many in their beds as possible then return to the ship."

 

"I did not join realize I had joined my hands with a coward. The men here are the delicate sons of the nobility. Soft and weak compared to true Starforce members. Their ancestors will never rest if they are murdered in their beds."

 

"I did not come here to care for the eternal souls of my enemy. "

 

"As a warrior, I will not kill a man in his bed."

 

"Then you wait among the trees and catch the ones that run towards the water."

 

The Kree nodded. Talos thought on his words. He had hoped he placed his trust in the right man.

* * *

  
"You are not real," Soren said to the tall figure standing a little ways from her. He was cloaked in shadow, but he carried himself like Talos.

 

"Of course I am real," Talos replied. It was so dark she could barely see him.

 

She shone her beam of light across the darkness and it landed on his chest. She moved it along his body until she could see her husband's face. He shaded the light from his eyes. He stepped closer to her. Beneath the fetid musty smell of the Central Systems, she could catch the smell of him. A deep intimate scent, one that had lived in her senses since they first locked eyes across the room. It was the smell of her mate. Her mate who was impossibly far from her.

 

"I don't know what you are, but you are not my husband." Soren held the light on his face as he bent lower to her. She was very small compared to his bulk. Talos always felt like her protector, but now as his body loomed over her, she felt her stomach clench. She wanted to skitter away from him like a rodent. His hands came around her face, warm real hands. She tried to turn away, but he held her fast.

 

'If I am not your husband, tell me where your husband is." He commanded gripping her tighter. "Tell me where he is and you can have the ship back."

 

"No," Soren struggled. She pushed through her senses trying to feel what was touching her. She felt emptiness. Whatever held her had no feelings, no fears, no weaknesses. She flailed harder in disgust.

 

Soren fell to the side hitting the hard metal of the platform. She had been asleep, but something had been wrong. She heard the sound of slithering against the metal. Thankfully the light was still in her hand. She turned the beam on to see the wavering movement of a thin dark wire. A wire that moved as if it was alive. She pushed her body forward to chase it, crawling awkwardly on her belly, stiff limbs pushing her. She reached out and grasped it. It darted and twisted in her hand like a worm. She could feel the flexing of tiny metal scales against her skin, it even had a strange glowing mouth. She was revolted. Her instinct was to drop it but she held firmer. It began to heat in her hand. She struggled to contain it while she searched in her bag. At last, she came across a broad pair of grips she could choke along its throat. She squeezed hard feeling it crack under the metal teeth. It shuddered one last time and the light died.

 

* * *

  
Carol landed in a hollowed out cave. The air smelled of damp and earth. There was darkness around her but she could see light further down the makeshift tunnel.

 

She turned a corner and the small cramped space opened before her. Though the walls were still earth and everywhere smelled of the water above there was a complicated set-up of technology surrounding her.

 

"Welcome to PEGASUS 2.0, Ace." Mar-Vell looked up from a rudimentary console

 

"How did you do this?" She asked, her eyes wide as she looked around.

 

"That's the thing about replicators. With enough vision, they can make anything." Mar-Vell placed an appreciative hand on Gret's shoulder "this is all Gret's work."

 

The Krylorian girl blushed and nodded her head.

 

"This is amazing, Gret."

 

"Mar-Vell is a good teacher. She helped me understand." The girl glowed beneath the praise. Carol wondered if anyone but Mar-Vell would have seen Gret's sharp mind and incredible skill.

 

"And what she couldn't build I stole." Greet smiled brightly and Carol thought she saw Gret look a little hesitant at her sister's bold confession.

 

"I like your style," Carol said smiling at both of them. She surveyed the lab. Mar-Vell followed her eyes a little nervously.

 

"I never pictured the power coming from a person. This may be uncomfortable."

 

Carol nodded, her chin was set in a determined tilt and her eyes were taking in every detail around her.

 

"I can do uncomfortable." She stood in front of the core. Carol saw no thrusters or engines. "I don't know how this is supposed to work."

 

"I need you to power everything. So we can create a wormhole."

 

"We are going to make a wormhole?" Carol raised her eyes in disbelief.

 

"Yes."

 

"It would collapse, how are we going to propel the planet through fast enough? There are no engines?"

 

"We just need you and gravity." Mar-Vell smiled at her.

 

"Me?" Carol pointed at herself in disbelief.

 

"Gret and I will create the wormhole. Once it is created I will need you to fire blasts at its surface. Just enough to bounce us along the edge."

 

"What?" Carol felt cold panic pass through her. This was Mar-Vell's plan. It seemed like lunacy.

 

"I know you don't understand Carol but I need you to trust me." Mar-Vell gripped Carol's shoulders looking at her intensely. Carol saw everything; the age in her face, the tiredness in her eyes. Someone who had been trapped alone for a very long time. The small voice inside whispered to her 'it's dangerous.' The problem was Carol liked danger. She trusted fear and doubt as a sign she was on the right path. She nodded and Mar-Vell breathed a sigh of relief.

 

"Tell me where you need me."

* * *

  
The path was not easy or straightforward. The thin wire could make it through spaces Soren couldn't even begin to fit through. She pushed forward, unwilling to let go of the ever-growing bundle of wire that had become her lifeline. She coiled it around her hands and around her body. It weighed heavier and heavier on her. She struggled to find her transmitter amongst the loops and loops of wire. The shining blue numbers told her she had only ten more hours.

The heat was growing even more oppressive and her body was weak. She tried to picture what the galaxy around them looked like. Had their course triggered any alarms on the mining planet that was their ultimate destination? Even now were they preparing to attack the seemingly rudderless ship that was so close to impacting their planet? It was not just the Skrulls that would die. They would kill hundreds of thousands below them. They would look to be attacking a Kree settlement. Untold harm would be done to their cause. The last peoples of Skrullos would be remembered as the bloodthirsty maniacs who had dashed their women and children against the surface of their enemy's planet. They would be remembered by history as murderers and cowards and nothing would stand to correct it. There would be no evidence of their fear. No one would remember Soren's climb through the Central System. Their children, if they survived, would never be able to hold their heads high in front of the galactic stage.

She had to continue moving. She was running out of time.

* * *

  
Talos crept down the hall toward the barracks. The Krylorian's body made little sound, but he knew when the time came it would be capable of anything Talos could do. The barracks were quiet. Most of the guards were late to rise. The lack of discipline had made their already soft, privileged bodies weaker. Hala was like any other Empire, no matter their creed, it was always the poor and disenfranchised which got fed first into the crucible of war. The children of the elite were allowed to lay in bed while still earning their medals. Talos stayed in the shadows watching the sleeping guards. He had killed men in their beds before, he had committed many atrocities in the name of saving his people. Except those men were singular threats. Individuals that had to be neutralized. As he watched from the shadows he saw them all grouped together. As helpless as animals.

 

Damn the Kree and his chiding words. They robbed Talos of his purpose. He turned to leave. He would join the Kree in the treeline.

 

He turned into the broad chest of the young redheaded Kree. Something in the girl's recent cellular memory bristled into an amorphous fear.

 

This one Talos could kill.

 

"A small thing like you shouldn't be sneaking around in the shadows" the Kree whispered, reaching for Talos' shoulder. He was unarmed, clad only in the cross body clothes of the Kree.

 

Before he could touch the pink skin of the Krylorian's body Talos grabbed his wrist. The Kree's eyes went wide with shock right before Talos slipped the knife in his other hand between the guard's ribs, puncturing his lung so he could not draw breath. The Kree slumped back against the white marble, his blue blood burbling from his side as he silently drowned.

 

Talso crouched over the man's legs. Getting close to the dying guard's face.

 

"It's a foolish man who thinks an orloni in a cage has forgotten its teeth."

 

Talos shifted in front of the guard's eyes, taking his face. The Kree's lips moved soundlessly 'Skrull'.

 

Talos dragged the body into the shadows. This form would not be good for long. The blood would be found soon.

 

Talos moved through the barracks to the back, rolling his shoulders against his new form. That was the problem with taking the shape of bastards, you had to wear their misdeeds close to your skin. The leader of the guard had taken Talos' blaster and locked it in the armory. The Kree was also unarmed after his time in exile. Therefore the armory would be his next step. The redheaded bastard knew the combination at the very least. Talos slipped in and found among the racks his own blaster and a similar one for the Kree. He also strapped to himself some flash grenades and smaller hand weapons.

 

He heard voices near the door.

 

"This should be locked." The leader of the guards' voice drifted through the room. Talos ducked low behind the shelves. He may have the Kree's face but he had no reason to be here, heavily armed. "Never mind. I need you to suit up. The prisoner and the house servants have disappeared. No need to be on full alert, but Rogg's brother and his bitch are also missing. Whatever you do, keep Rogg out of it."

 

Talos ground his teeth. He had hoped they would evade notice a little while longer. Obviously, there was one competent man on the planet.

 

The younger Kree was left alone among the shelves of the armory. Talos stayed low. He tracked the young Kree through the shelves. He paused to look at a bolas. Talos slipped a similar weapon from a lower shelf. Moving quickly he stepped behind the Kree wrapping the cord around his neck. There was a moment of shock and panic while he struggled against the attack, but Talos pulled so hard no sound could leave his throat.

 

Talos rolled his body beneath a shelf and assumed his form.

 

He passed through the barracks, receiving a subtle nod from their commander. The body locked behind him in the vault.

* * *

  
"Everyone in positions?" Mar-Vell called out. She was seated at a dark screened console.

 

Carol answered with a whoop from the centre of the core. Each hand gripping a contact. Gret called from the chair she was tilted back in, her body pointed towards the dirt ceiling of the cave. Her body was strapped in, the replicator hard wired to the power source. Greet cowered against the damp earthen wall. Her face was strained and she looked as if she wanted to cry.

 

"Alright, Carol. Time to turn the lights on."

 

Carol ignited her hands and the core whirred to life. Around them, the underground lab came to life. Mar-Vell's screen blinked on.

 

The room began to heat uncomfortably. Concern gripped Carol's stomach. Was this what was supposed to happen?

 

"It's getting stuffy in here" Mar-Vell called over the whir and hum of the machines. "I'll open a window."

 

She flipped switches and water began to pour above them rushing from the pond and filling cooling tanks. Carol laughed in shock as the sky was revealed to them through the basin of the pond.

 

"What could you do if we'd given you seven more years, doc?" She shouted over the banging and rushing water.

 

"I'd be flying this thing myself Ace" Mar-Vell looked electrified. Above them the sky was beautiful. "Alright, Gret. Time to shine."

 

The replicator began to glow. Gret was focusing hard, her hands clasped together. Mar-Vell was flipping switches. The core whirred louder, pulling more power from Carol. She was beginning to feel the stretch and the heat in her body. The core was insatiable.

 

Above them, an astral blue began to fill the sky. Carol could barely see as she slumped forward sweating against the contacts, but as she looked up through the haze she saw a shadow forming within the blue.

 

Gret was making a planet.

* * *

  
Yon-Rogg crouched among the low brush at the edge of the trees feeling like a coward. He had said would not murder the guards in their beds, but now he was in position watching DarRogg he felt like he had left the Skrull to do all the dirty work. His body was not what it had been before Koonar. He felt the heaviness of starvation and inactivity in his limbs. A small dark voice wondered if he would even survive in hand to hand combat with one of these paper guards. He had no weapons of his own. Neutralizing a siege of the traitor's lab would mean killing them with his bare hands.

 

The traitor had called him the one with the least to contribute and in the cold misty dawn air, he had to admit that was true. He did not even have the conviction to steal the planet. All he wanted was to collect Vers and leave. Find some corner of the universe where they could not be found. Where they could start again.

 

Yon-Rogg was fooling himself if he thought she would ever want stillness. Yon-Rogg was a warrior, a man who commandeered the battlefield and bent it to his will. Vers was a hero. It had been her first question when he had started their journey together at Starforce. 'Are we the heroes?'

 

They were. Or he had thought they were. The Kree were the breaker of bonds, the bringers of civilization. Now as he watched them gambol around DarRogg, trapping women and ignoring their duties, he wondered if he had been blinded by tales of glory. It was the true difference between a warrior and a hero. Warriors rose to the occasion of war, to threats. Heroes rose to injustice. Vers was here because she was a hero. Yon-Rogg was here to fight for her.

 

Yon-Rogg shifted in the brush, listening to the sound of wind in the branches. It was deceptively still. He strained his ears for any sound of trouble, he watched DarRogg closely.

 

His keen eye picked up movement in the shadows of the colonnade. A figure was leaving the shelter of the estate. As Yon-Rogg watched him approach across the rolling lawn he recognized the shape of one of the younger guards. He was armed to the teeth, in the fashion of a man who had taken everything in front of him.

 

The young guard's eyes scanned the brush as if he knew already Yon-Rogg was there. The guard held up his hand in front of him, concealed against the palm of his hand was dagger covered in blue blood.

 

"Skrull?" Yon-Rogg hissed. The Guard nodded and jog towards the brush where Yon-Rogg was crouched.

 

"Your armour hides you quite well despite how hideous it is" the Skrull whispered joining him to crouch in the brush. He began handing Yon-Rogg weapons. Yon-Rogg instinctively began clipping them to their proper place, giving the Skrull a dirty look. "We do not have long. They have noticed we are missing."

 

"How many are dead?" Yon-Rogg asked, checking the sight on his pistol.

 

"Two. More will join them soon."

 

"You only killed two?"

 

"You can think of it as I am two ahead of you if you prefer." The Skrull grinned at him, his face slowly morphing into Yon-Rogg's own.

 

"What are you playing at, you green -" the Skrull silenced him as he pointed to the grounds. A black line was swarming out of DarRogg, they moved quickly across the lawn.

 

"They found this one's body. If we can keep them confused looking for my Kree form it will buy us time. Draw them away from the women and towards the ship."

 

Yon-Rogg couldn't argue with the deceit. They were outnumbered. The least they could do is confuse them. The Skrull began moving deeper into the brush.

 

"Fight with honour, Kree."

 

"Do not die today, Skrull"

 

With that they parted, using the cover of the woods to gain the jump on their enemy.

* * *

  
There came a time when Soren could pull no more. Beneath her was the dull blue glow of the super core. She had reached the heart. The platform she was on ended and she looked over into the dim chamber below. She could feel the whoosh of warm air blow passed her as she leaned over the platform.

 

The sound was so loud she didn't hear the slithering of wires until it was too late. Like a deadly strike, she felt the constriction on her knees and she was falling. She grabbed for the edge of the platform. She caught it. She held on as the wires tugged at her knees. She felt another one creep around her ankles. She clung to the platform's railing desperately with one arm. Using her free hand she dug in her bag. Her hand closed around the small hexagon. She pulled it out and slammed it hard on the platform. The magnetic field ignited and her legs were dragged upwards as the wires were drawn to the pull of the magnet.

 

Soren was suspended by her feet beneath the platform, some items from her bag fell into the dimly lit chamber below, others flew upwards passed her head so she had to cover her face with her arms.

 

The wires tightened around her knees and Soren cried out against the pressure. The magnet was beginning to make the lights flicker in the mouths of the wires. They heated up as they shorted against her skin. Their grip lessened and Soren bent at the waist so she could grip against the thick rope of the wires. She saw the small flicker lights of more wires coming down for her. Once she had a good grip she clicked the button on her tracker releasing the magnet. She heard the tinkling of her tools falling from the magnetized metal. Her stomach dropped as the wires released and Soren plummeted with them to the chamber below.

* * *

  
Yon-Rogg watched as the line of guards dispersed across the lawn, each heading away in a different direction charging towards the trees. He began to move away from the Skrull's path, putting more distance between them. By Yon-Rogg's math, he would need to kill five of them before the Skrull could get farther ahead. At that moment, as they swarmed the woods they were no longer his brethren, but wolves hunting his bond mate. He would have slaughtered the remaining seven from his post if he had a ranged weapon. All the ones Skrull had brought him were not made for distance.

 

Yon-Rogg made a serpentine path through the woods, breaking as many branches and making as much sound as possible. He was moving away from Vers. He did not even know what sort of place she was in. Only that the Traitor had carved out a hovel in which to continue her work.

 

He was aware above him the sky had turned an ultraviolet blue. A haze which seemed to exist above the cloud line.

 

Behind him, Yon-Rogg heard the voices of two guards.

 

"They went this way," a confident voice proclaimed. Yon-Rogg paused by a large thick tree. It would cover him from potential blaster bolts. He moved his body slightly. Using his periphery he could see two guards. Both of medium build with blue skin. One had a dark beard while the other was clean-shaven. They were not men he knew by sight nor did he know their clan.

 

He leaned against the tree, gathering himself. He had never imagined he would kill members of Starforce. He breathed slowly, bringing his focus to the sounds around him. They hunted Vers he reminded himself.

 

"Why would Rogg's bastard brother turn against the Empire? He was the one who captured the Prisoner, to begin with." Their voices drifted towards him.

 

"Too many rumours to know for sure, but they say he is bent to the whim of his bloodmate." Yon-Rogg felt his blood rise that two subordinates would think to discuss his brother and him in this way.

 

Yon-Rogg slid the blade from its sheath. He gripped the dark purple metal close against his chest. He was attuned to them as the walked towards him. His breath became even more shallow. He was one with the silence around him. There was the snap of a twig and Yon-Rogg sidestepped, moving his blade quickly. It passed smoothly directly through the neck of the clean-shaven guard. Only once Yon-Rogg felt the warm gush of blood flow over his hand did he step back. There was a cry from the other guard. He fired, but Yon-Rogg had already rolled around the tree so the bolt met nothing but tree trunk. He was on the other side behind the guard, his blade sheathed and his pistol pulled. He fired once before the bearded Kree even caught sight of him. A burning black hole opened in the centre of the man's forehead and he fell backward.

 

"I said 'go towards the ship' you miserable sack of shit." The Skrull's voice burst in his ear through the comm. Yon-Rogg brought his wrist to his mouth.

 

"We're tied now, you Green Bastard," he said low into the comm smiling as he pictured the anger coursing through the Skrull.

* * *

  
The shadow began to take a larger form, Carol realized Gret was projecting a planet far outside the atmosphere of Onigaia. It was awe inspiring. Not only was she building something complex in her mind she was shaping it far far away from them. The Krylorian was suffering for it. Her small body was clenched tight in her tilted back chair, her brow painfully furrowed and sweat poured off her body. Power was beginning to hum and glow around her. The blue glow of the replicator was enveloping her, sparks arching from the nebulous cloud to her skin. Each spark made her eyes close.

 

"Keep your eyes open, Gret" Mar-Vell encouraged from her console while she was monitoring the shape of the planet. The girl let out an animal cry as she forced her eyes open.

 

"Mar-Vell she is in pain," Carol shouted from the core. The energy faltered as Carol began to release the contacts, her instinct was to go to the girl stop her suffering.

 

"Stay Carol, we can't stop now. Gret is doing great." Mar-Vell held her hands up, her eyes never leaving the screen.

Greet let out a whimper as she watched her sister. She began to crawl from the wall, where she had been curled up in fear, and make her way on her hands and knees through the dirt to her sister.

"We've hit the right circumference, Gret. Focus on giving me more mass. Think about the core. Picture metals passing through gas. Sinking to the core. Becoming heavier." Mar-Vell's eyes never left the screen. Her hands moved quickly as she keyed in calculations.

Carol was stuck between the two contacts of the core. She couldn't see what was happening, her muscles were too cramped to bend forward. The core was pulling enough power from her to create a planet and funneling it through the Krylorian who was rigid with effort.

Greet made it to her sister. She sat at her feet her eyes wide as Gret vibrated against the chair, her jaw clenched so tight sound couldn't leave her mouth.

"We have it! Just maintain Gret. You can do this. Just hold it a little while longer." Mar-Vell encouraged.

They were beneath the shadow of the planet. The world was cast into darkness.

* * *

 

Yon-Rogg had been stalking his prey through the forest. He had seen the Skrull setting off flash grenades in the distant treeline. Traveling towards there ship. The man Yon-Rogg was following had stayed on his path, unfooled by the diversion. The man had a broad chest and deep blue skin. Unlike the others, Yon-Rogg had encountered this man was alone. Yon-Rogg kept pace with him, slowing when he slowed. Stopping when he stopped.

 Yon-Rogg knew this man. Not personally, but he knew his clan and he knew he had been among the first ones sent to this planet. His name was Alt-Rath, where Xe-Rogg had lost his mind it seemed that Alt-Rath had come into his own. The reedy new recruit had grown into a well-muscled soldier.

 

Yon-Rogg had been following him for a while. Alt-Rath moved with purpose among the trees but he was slow. Yon-Rogg wondered at his deliberate path.

 

They came to a ravine, it was a low deep channel through the forest floor. Alt-Rath found a gnarled tree whose knotted roots made an easy ladder into the ground below. Yon-Rogg watched as he moved downwards with grace. There was a crunching sound of dry leaves followed by the squelch of boots hitting quagmire. Yon-Rogg had no choice but to follow above him as he would be noticed scrambling into the crevice with him.

 

Yon-Rogg stayed back relying on the sounds of boots to lead him along Alt-Rath's path. Yon-Rogg had the higher ground he could easily shoot the guard from above, but he could not bring himself to do it. He admired Alt-Rath's fortitude, his resistance to the idle pleasures of Onigaia. He would not kill him unless he stumbled too close to Vers.

 

The sound of boots stopped.

 

There was nothing but silence for a long while. At last Yon-Rogg edged closer to the ravine. He saw Alt-Rath stopped about ten feet in front of him. Still as a statue. Yon-Rogg observed him for a while, knee deep in muck and stiff-backed.

 

"I have smelt the blood on you for many miles" Alt-Rath spoke aloud, unmoving, Yon-Rogg was taken aback. A white-hot spear of panic moved through him; this was a trap. "How many of my men, your brethren, have decorated your boots with their blood today?"

 

Yon-Rogg said nothing. He did not move away from the ridge though his hands found his pistol at his belt. Alt-Rath turned to look at him. His purple eyes were cold fire.

 

"Do you kill for yourself or for your whore?" He asked, his voice shaking with barely contained revulsion. Yon-Rogg gripped his gun tighter he longed to burn a hole through him for insulting Vers, but it would still be a coward's move. Alt-Rath assessed him. "I would cleanse you, brother."

 

Alt-Rath flicked his hand and a small charge blew beneath Yon-Rogg's feet. The ground gave way and he slid suddenly into the swampy water below.

 

He landed on his back in a cascade of leaves, sinking quick into the slick. Alt-Rath splashed loudly through the water towards him, Yon-Rogg struggled to find purchase so he could pull himself up. He pushed back against the soft earth wall, smearing himself with mud. Alt-Rath pulled his pistol, training it on Yon-Rogg's chest.

 

Yon-Rogg's pistol had become waterlogged and useless. He threw it away. Alt-Rath held him against the wall with his weapon. Yon-Rogg raised his hands.

 

"Did you show my men this much mercy?" Alt-Rath asked his face twisted with anger. "Did you allow them to beg for their lives? I would have you beg me to spare you."

 

The muck had sucked around Yon-Rogg's boots, he was pinioned in place by the swamp. Alt-Rath had led him here because it was an excellent killing field. Yon-Rogg was bested physically. The only thing he could hope for was to get him to lower his guard. To play his own doubts against him.

 

"You have misunderstood. What would I have to gain from any of the things you accuse me of?" Yon-Rogg spoke in his measured tone. His opponent grit his teeth holding the pistol more firmly.

 

"Only you could explain it. How should I understand the motivations of Old Rogg's bastard?"

 

The insult stung but Yon-Rogg grit his teeth against it. The fact he had used it told Yon-Rogg that Alt-Rath had his own doubts.

 

"You think I have come here to what? Slaughter the guards? Then what? Let us go talk to my brother we can put this all in the past." Yon-Rogg's words seemed to momentarily lull the hulking man. His grip loosened ever so slightly before he shook his head, retraining the weapon on Yon-Rogg.

 

"Your brother has already been alerted to your treachery. He will have already informed the Empire."

 

At that moment the sky went dark. Alt-Rath looked up as the shadow enveloped them. Yon-Rogg took his chance and threw himself at the man. He was hindered by the sludge around his feet, but the mountain of a man had gone slack as he looked up at the sky in shock. Yon-Rogg was able to knock his pistol away and send him backward.

 

Alt-Rath stumbled, but he caught himself before he fell into the muck. They came towards each other again, sloshing their feet through the dirty water, their arms moving to balance themselves against the pull of the earth.

 

They grappled awkwardly, each trying to get the other one beneath them to force their opponent down. Alt-Rath was heavier and as they grappled he churned up more mud, his boots sinking deeper so he could not move as well. Finally, he was down so deep Yon-Rogg was able to get behind him and wrestle him into submission. Yon-Rogg held him beneath the water, Alt-Rath thrashed against him, but he could not dislodge Yon-Rogg from his back.

 

At last, the bubbles stopped and Yon-Rogg looked up to the sky. Above him was a planet that had appeared from nothing.

* * *

  
Soren fell, trying as best she could to hold onto the slack wires that had been wrapped around her legs. She couldn't grip the smooth metal easily. She braced instead, for impact. She landed hard, but she landed among coils and coils of cables. They were not the thin living wire of the SI but of varying sizes all feeding into the dull glowing super core of the ship. Though she was grateful for the softened landing she was revolted by the shoddy work. She knew the Kree would never build their ship this way. It must have been the handiwork of one of the dozens of owners. No wonder this ship had kept changing hands she thought as she glanced around the sweltering chamber. There was no order, no thought. They had been traveling in a completely unstable vessel before the SI had done its damage.

 

Everything was cast in a light blue glow as the core throbbed like a heart. The core was so diminished it barely emitted any light, but as Soren had spent almost ten hours in the dark she found it hurt her eyes just to look at it. She squinted trying to make out details. She had to find her tools that had been scattered around the floor.

 

She moved with highs steps, careful not to become more tangled. Beneath the hum of the core and venting of superheated air Soren strained her ears for the slithering sound of wires. Every moment she thought she heard them coming for her.

 

At last, she noticed a faint glow between the wires, as she neared it she hoped it would be the beam she dropped. She was beneath the platform, when she looked up she saw the dizzying height of the Central Systems' assembly. She reached between the thick wires hoping her hand would meet her beam and not a glowing nest of the SI's mouths. Each cable that brushed her arm made her want to pull away, but she forced herself to continue reaching. Finally, her hand closed around the familiar case of the beam. She pulled it out quickly grasping it to her chest. The relief flooded through her, now she had light she had a chance.

 

She stood straighter balanced on the tangle of cables and swung the beam around. There was nothing new to see, just the repeating frames holding their dusty unkempt hardware. She realized she didn't know what she was looking for. She expected on every outcropping or bar there to be a deadly, metal spider, long lethal legs punching into the walls clinging inside the ship like a parasite.

 

No, she corrected herself; this ship was its home. This chamber was not its lair, but a place that had been specially built for it. At last, her light fell on the hanging wires and she followed them upwards. Many feet above her, higher than the platform she fell from she saw the white exterior shell mounted close against the wall like an egg sack. The unassuming blob was the centre of the SI on the ship.

 

She searched among the wires, she first needed as many tools as she could find. Her thin beam of light wove in and out if the thick black cables. Everything around her felt too blue and the edges were beginning to blur in her vision. She managed to find her grips and a long sonic driver. She continued to search. She saw a glint twenty paces in front of her. Another magnetic catcher. Soren's heart leaped and she sprinted towards it.

 

As she moved she heard the telltale slithering. She tried to move quickly over the coiled cables but she was hindered by the uneven ground. She fell forward as she felt the wire strike at her ankle. She grabbed the cables in front of her pulling herself farther towards her magnet. She could not activate it because she didn't know which direction it would fly. She felt more wire constrict her ankle as she reached forward her fingers just missing the silver edge.

 

"Inamorata," Talos' voice called to her. Soren clenched her teeth against the deception. "They know where I am. They are coming for me."

 

Soren screamed in frustration reaching further. As more wires grabbed her, her fingers closed around the magnet.

 

There were dozens of wires, glowing brightly, wrapped around her legs.

 

"You should have told them where I was, beloved. They have found me anyway, but now you will never get the ship back." Talos taunted her from the ground as the wires lifted her from the ground wrapping further around her body.

 

She did not know what the SI planned once it engulfed her, but the AI was limited. It had no eyes, and it could not properly hunt her with the temperature of the chamber masking her reptilian body. She struggled against it. She had to keep her arms free. Like a spider, it wrapped more around her and dragged her closer to its nest.  
As more wires wrapped her ribs Soren pointed the magnet at the SI. She whipped it as hard as she could towards its descended white body.

 

The field engaged and all the wire wrapped around her were suddenly pulled towards the wall.

 

She slammed hard against the metal. The SI's casing would prevent the field from affecting its function. There was only the inelegant solution of damaging the case. Any more wires that snaked from the body of the SI were pulled immediately to the magnet so it was a flickering writhing mass.

 

"What are you doing?" The warped voice of Talos called from the ground below her.

 

"Taking back my ship," Soren responded her voice cracked and dry from hours cooking inside the edifice.

 

She attacked the case as the glowing maws of the wires began to flicker and die around her.

* * *

  
Yon-Rogg moved quickly from the treeline. He could think of no clearer sign that the jump was imminent than a mystery planet appearing in the sky.

 

"Where are you, Skrull?" Yon-Rogg growled into the comm.

 

"I am at the ship, you need to move Kree," the Skrull's voice crackled in his ear.

 

"Bring it closer, I won't make it."

 

"I suppose you should run then," the Skrull said and Yon-Rogg swore under his breath.

He was sore and covered in mud. He felt the weight of what he had done to protect their plan hanging on his shoulders. Yon-Rogg had been absorbed by his comm he looked up taking two quick jogging steps forward. He stopped when he saw Xe-Rogg in front of him. He had forgotten in all the bloodshed that his brother was still left to be dealt with. He couldn't leave him here. He couldn't let him suffer what horrible fate awaited those left on the surface.

 

"Brother," Yon-Rogg called. "Brother, I can explain."

 

"You are covered in the dirt of my planet and the blood of my men. Your mate, your guard and my prisoner have all vanished. I am surprised, brother, that you know enough words to explain it all."

 

Xe's voice was unnaturally calm. His hand did not reach for the blaster on his hip, his eyes were glassy but they held none of the unhinged heat Yon-Rogg had come to expect. He wondered if his brother had fallen into some sort of shock.

 

"Your men attacked me, I had no choice. As for my bloodwife for all I know the prisoner has captured her. Come with me Xe. Let us find them together."

 

Xe nodded as if he was considering his words. He had not mentioned how the world had been cast into premature darkness. Nor how in the sky, too close to them looming closer by the minute, a planet had formed.

 

Yon-Rogg reached out his hand in peace, gesturing him away from DarRogg. Yon-Rogg knew the Skrull would fight him at first, but he would take his brother with them.

 

"I told Father you were here, Yon. He was very angry." Xe-Rogg's voice was light and high almost like that of a child. Yon-Rogg was taken aback.

 

"You told Father? How?"

 

"Father comes to me in my dreams. He told me to rebuild DarRogg. He told me when I did he would come. He would bring mother and we would start again."

 

"He did?" Yon-Rogg tried to keep his voice level and calm as if he was coaxing an animal.

 

"I asked him if he would bring you as well, Yon, but Father didn't want you."

 

"That does sound like Father," Yon-Rogg tried to smile through his concern.

 

"I wanted you, Yon," Xe-Rogg looked at him with hurt and betrayal. "But once you were here I began to dream you wanted to destroy DarRogg. Now that has come to pass."

 

"DarRogg still stands. Nothing has happened."

 

"My men are dead," Xe-Rogg answered coldly.

 

"They weren't loyal to you, Xe, not like I am," Yon-Rogg glanced up at the planet above them. They had to move. "Come with me."

 

Yon-Rogg began to take steps towards the ship. They still had so far to go. He felt awash with relief when Xe-Rogg took a couple of hesitant steps.

 

"How can I trust you?"

 

"You know me, brother. You know me better than anyone," Yon-Rogg swore, trying not to picture Vers haloed by Hala's sun.

 

Above them was the roar of an engine and the rippling of a cloaked craft. The scout ship landed twenty paces from them and the Skrull descended wearing Yon-Rogg's face. Xe-Rogg stumbled back in shock. He pulled the blaster from his belt.

 

Yon-Rogg had been disarmed by his battle with Alt-Rath, but the Skrull reached for his blaster. Yon-Rogg gave the smallest shake of his head and the Skrull's hand dropped to his side.

 

"What was that you were saying, Brother? Tell me which one of you should I trust." Xe-Rogg aimed his blaster between the two of them. Above them, the growing planet shuddered.

 

"We must get on the ship" the Skrull exclaimed his eyes upon the planet. "It has begun."

 

"What has begun?" Xe-Rogg pointed his blaster more firmly at the Skrull. "Which one of you is my brother?"

 

It was clear Xe-Rogg intended to shoot the interloper. His gun continued to move manically between the two of them. At last, it fell more firmly on the Skrull.

 

"Prove you are my brother," Xe-Rogg demanded. His finger was already firmly on the trigger. Yon-Rogg felt his stomach pitch. They were illuminated in glowing blue light as the planet above them continued to shudder.

 

"We will settle this on the ship we have to go." The Skrull insisted his hands up and his eyes on the blaster. The wind kicked up; there was a horrible sucking sound in the atmosphere above them.

 

"No, we will settle this now. Which one of you is my brother?" Xe-Rogg moved the gun between them as the blue light grew brighter and the sound grew louder. Whatever horrible death awaited them on the surface of the planet when they jumped was about to begin. Yon-Rogg looked at the Skrull whose eyes were fixed on the blaster. He had promised Vers he would protect this man. He had promised to choose her above the Kree and above the war.

 

"Our mother would be so disappointed brother. She raised us to love one another. We were to be the joys of the house of Rogg," Yon-Rogg shouted over the cracking sound of the planet above them. Xe-Rogg turned to him the blaster square to his chest. Yon-Rogg braced himself and thought of Vers.

 

"She's not your mother," Xe-Rogg's voice shook with anger and all Yon-Rogg saw was the glowing blast of green.

 

Talos cried out as he saw the insane Kree turn his blaster on his own brother and fire a single shot. He pulled his blaster from his belt and unloaded as many bolts as he could into the madman before he fell to the ground.

 

Above them, louder than the sound of the crumbling planet was the pop of a Kree fleet arriving in the atmosphere above Onigaia.

* * *

  
"We're caught in its pull. We just need to get a little closer before we let it collapse," Mar-Vell called from her console, she was as trapped there as Carol was trapped inside the core. Carol watched in horror as Gret struggled against the massive weight of creating the planet. Greet was sobbing at her sister's feet.

The surface grew bigger and Carol knew Onigaia was falling into its gravity. Gret's mouth was stuck open in a silent howl and her body convulsed. Carol couldn't stand it.

"Mar-Vell, do something," she sobbed. Carol felt the power leaving her body and literally frying the small slip of a girl.

"Gret can do this," Mar-Vell answered. Her voice was adamant and Carol felt like she was looking at a stranger. Mar-Vell's eyes were locked on her screen, her mind and her fingers flying. She didn't even look behind her to the dying Krylorian. "Now, Gret. Collapse it. The planet must fold in on itself. It has to crumple in order to form the wormhole."

Gret closed her eyes and Carol felt a surge through the core as the girl pulled more power from her. The darkness was replaced by the unnatural blue glow of the replicator as the planet began to change. Its surface cracked, around them the air started to swirl and suck as a planet, too close to them, began to punch a hole through space. Mar-Vell's hands flew and the air around them sizzled and came to life with a shield sealing them into the lab.

The planet shrunk more and Greet made a horrified pleading sound. Carol swore the poor Krylorian sisters were beginning to smoke.

"Please sister, please stop. You are the oldest sister. I need you. Please." Greet sobbed into her sister's shins as her body began to burn up in the blue light. Mar-Vell glanced over her shoulder, her face white with shock. She almost moved to pull Greet away, to tell her to stop, but her console began to beep and she had to turn back. Greet continued to plead.

"Please sister. Sister. Sister, you can't leave me. Sister, you made me. Please, I will be so alone. Please" the girl wept on the ground against the rigid body of Gret. Above her, the planet began to glow. It looked about the size of a moragu fruit. All the mass so singularly compressed. Carol had never felt pain like the core pulling more power from her, but all she felt was nothing compared to Gret's suffering. Angry tears streamed down her face.

"Greet will be so obedient, please stay sister." Greet continued to bargain, her forehead now pressed to her sister's knees. Great empty sobs wracked her whole body.

Gret moved against her incredible pain. Her mouth struggling to work against her tight muscles. She managed to place her hand in Greet's black halo of hair.

"No more obedience" Gret forced the words through her teeth. Her last word's to her sister before the planet disappeared with a snapping sound. Gret fell forward in her chair. Greet wailed and Carol screamed. Only Mar-Vell stayed cold.

The bright glowing sphere left in the place of the planet was growing bigger. Onigaia was continuing to be pulled towards it.

"Now Carol, I need you to release the energy from the Core. We can't pass through it, we need to travel along the edge."

Carol was consumed with horror, rage, and grief. For a moment the core had stopped draining her. The incredible power was now held in the glowing containment units next to her. She released the contacts stepping out from the core. She wanted to charge at Mar-Vell. She wanted to throw something. Carol was consumed with the gnawing empty feeling of guilt. It had been her power that had coursed through Gret's small body. She had killed her, but Carol couldn't accept it. She wanted to be mad at someone else, scream against a senseless death

"How could you?" She yelled at Mar-Vell taking more angry steps towards her. "She trusted you and you killed her"

"And if we don't finish she died for nothing" Mar-Vell shouted back, trying to be heard above the cacophony of the core and the sound of Onigaia falling into the abyss.

Carol cried out in frustration as Greet sobbed into her sister's body. Mar-Vell was right. If Carl didn't act now they would be sucked into the collapsing centre of the wormhole. She turned her back on the others and reached her hands out towards the core. The photon energy began to pour out of the containment units and Carol began to absorb the power of the core, charging herself. Absorbing so much energy she glowed and the air around her moved in currents.

She turned and looked towards the wormhole filling their sky. She propelled herself upwards and burst through the drained pond bed. As Mar-Vell had told her she aimed the incredible energy at the curved surface of the wormhole. Stopping them from falling through it, pushing the atmosphere of Onigaia away by microns so that they rolled like a marble around a globe. In the storm of light and blasts of energy, she thought she saw a glimpse of hulking ships, but she was no longer sure what was real. Her body had gone binary, she was nothing more than a cannon of power.

At last, a new night sky appeared on the horizon of Onigaia. They had folded space and new constellations appeared before them. 

"Push us away. As much energy as you can. We have to disengage before it collapses." Mar-Vell's voice crackled in the comm in her ear.

Carol brought her two fists in front of her and fired, the glowing surface of the wormhole being bombarded with all the remaining power in the containment units. She pulled in the energy as fast as she pushed it out, she was no more than a valve between the two.

At last, the wormhole could be seen, a giant blue sun over Onigaia. Carol felt as if her body was about to shatter as she half landed, half fell from the sky.

She crashed into the bank of the pond. It was a black night around them, the only light was the white-blue of the wormhole above them washing the shore in colour. Carol rolled onto her back staring at it. Her body was drained. All she could think of was Maria's bug light back home.

Mar-Vell was running across the shore to her, her heart was in her throat. Carol was so still on the shore.

"We got company" Carol shouted trying to sit up. A shadow crossed the light. Emerging from the wormhole was a battalion of Kree ships.

"Wait" Mar-Vell cried out. She continued running to Carol, her feet slid against the loose pebbles of the shore.

As the ships began to take shape in front of them the wormhole collapsed and the sky was lit with fire and explosions as the Kree warships were severed into pieces.

Stones skittered as Mar-Vell reached her. A small spray of pebbles hitting her body. Carol half laughed, half sobbed in exhaustion trying to sit up. She looked at her mentor in the starlight.

"And that's why you don't go through the wormhole." She panted into the dirt.

* * *

  
Talos uncloaked the ship. It had been a wild ride of lights and sound. The ship had rocked and the world beyond the shield had been lit by competing sprays of light. He had felt nauseous as if he could feel the world moving.

 

With a final explosion night had reigned and constellations he had never seen before lit up the sky. Onigaia was no longer in the Helgentar system.

 

At last, he dropped the gangplank and walked down to the surface. The air wreaked of ozone and smoke. He could not see what remained of the lush world, but he could breathe the air and stand on the soil.

 

It was hard to see in the dark, but he thought he saw a small cluster limping towards him. The dark shape grew and he could see three women walking towards him. One stumbled exhausted and the other two clung to each other.

 

When they reached him he could see it was a Krylorian girl clinging to Mar-Vell. Carol gripped her arm and appeared scorched, but alive. They were all too shaken to do anything more but stare at each other. Carol looked white.

 

"Where's Yon?" She asked her voice tense. Talos swallowed and nodded his head to the ship behind him. Before he could say a word she pushed passed him and was making her way up the gangplank.

 

Mar-Vell looked at him and he shook his head.

 

"Leave her for a minute." He said his voice hoarse.

 

Mar-Vell nodded pulling the shaking Krylorian closer to her.

 

"What now, Doc?" Talos asked looking at the sky above him.

 

"We see if a sun rises."

* * *

  
Dezan rubbed his temples. They were eight hours out from the surface of the Kree mining planet. No one had tried to hail them yet, but he supposed they were used to ships full of workers approaching the planet. No one would question them for another three hours at least. By that point, their fates would be sealed. They could not use the comms to explain any more than they could cloak themselves. His stomach was in knots thinking of Soren alone in the belly of the beast. He thought it should have been him. This craft was his responsibility. He had failed his post by not being as thorough as he should have been.

 

In the meantime Dezan had built a small program which bombarded the ship with constant commands, he hoped they could flood the SI and possibly get ahead. It was intelligent, but it still had to obey the rules of programming. For the last ten hours, he had been thwarted at every turn. The program continued to assault the barricade around their navigation system with no luck.

 

The air was thick in the Navigation Centre as the life systems continued to dwindle. The heat was making his eyes droop and his head bob forward. He could sleep right where he was he thought. He shook himself in disgust. Their leader's wife was risking her life and he was thinking of sleep. And yet the heady pull was almost irresistible.

 

Dezan slumped forward. He dreamed there was a bird in the Navigation Centre. It flapped around his head and sang one long high note at him. He tried to swat his arms but he found they didn't work. At last, he forced his body to flail at the bird and he began to fall legless and armless from his chair. Dezan woke with a start. There was no bird he realized, just the high pitched note that was his program telling him he had broken through. He saw the system open up before him. The life systems began to increase, whirring back to normal. He could engage the backward thrusters to fight against the pull of the planet. And he could engage the cloaking. They didn't yet have enough power to send a signal outward with the comms. Possibly that could be repaired, but for now, they were no longer on a complete collision course.

 

Soren. It struck him suddenly through his joy. Soren had done it he thought. He stood up in shock. They had to get to her. They had to find her within the Central System. Dezan tore from the bridge activating his internal comm as he went.

* * *

  
They huddled around the small fire he had built at the foot of the scout ship. He supposed it would have made more sense to return to the estate, or the lab, or even the ship. Anywhere they could hide and hope for sunlight was buried under the stench of death. How could they sit among their own Dead or the ones they had killed? Carol alone sat on the ship, white as a ghost, keeping vigil.

 

Greet had her head in Mar-Vell's lap. She had cried so many tears she had worn herself out. Mar-Vell was absentmindedly stroking her hair. Mar-Vell's gaze was lost in the fire, her hands less comforting than automatic. She was cold-eyed and her spine was stiff.

 

"I feel like I have abandoned her," Mar-Vell said at last. Talos knew she spoke to him even when she did not turn her head. "I dragged her into this mess and I don't have anything left to give to her to help."

 

"I don't know about that. Those powers are something else." Talos said, glancing at the stars. A sky they could see only because Carol had flown them here. Mar-Vell laughed. It was a cold, angry sound.

 

"Some gift. I might as well have drawn a target on her back."

 

"There are other things," Talos said. His eyes trained on the fire. He wondered if it was his place to say.

 

"Like what?" Mar-Vell sounded so tired.

 

"She calls herself Captain Marvel. She carries your name with her, your vision of peace."

 

Mar-Vell looked away. She looked at the stars. Talos could see in the firelight unshed tears filling her eyes. He knew she was thinking of Gret and the Kree aboard the ship. There had been many lives lost today. Some more innocent than others.

 

"Today I do not feel like the bringer of peace. I am sure Carol regrets the name now." Mar-Vell blinked away her tears. Looking down at the girl wrapped around her knees.

 

"Carol understands choice. She understands how powerful it is because she did not get to choose."

 

"Gret-"

 

"Knew her limits. Don't rob her of her choice because you feel guilty. She knew what you were asking and she knew what would happen. In war, we don't have the luxury to refuse the sacrifice of others. We can only be grateful."

 

Mar-Vell nodded. She was silent. Talos wondered if he had gone too far, but he had to. If Mar-Vell regretted her choices, what they gained would be lost. The sacrifices of others had to mean something.

 

"Do you think she loves him?" She nodded to the ship. Talos followed with his eyes, thinking of all he had seen of them over the last few days. Feeling in him the recent memories of the Kree whose face he had worn.

 

"If she does, she is going to have a bad time of it. He's a difficult bastard, but he saved my life."

 

"The Kree are not raised to walk away from the Empire."

 

"You did."

 

"I did."

 

They sat in silence. Their thoughts with Carol on the ship and her lonely night ahead. A night they could not ease or brighten. All they could do, in their separate fears and individual hopes, was wait for dawn.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not over yet.

Carol was slouched forward against the cot. Her forehead resting on the thin mattress. She was asleep. Or at least she was trying to sleep. Behind her eyelids, all she saw was soft grey light and she thought someone was talking to her. She tried to convince herself to go back to sleep, but the voice was insistent.

 

"What?" She murmured into the mattress.

 

"You need to stop sleeping like that and get up."

 

"Why?" She felt a little like a petulant child, but she couldn't think of a good reason she should leave the place of her vigil.

 

"Because Ace, the sun is up."

 

That roused Carol. She lifted her head blinking away the sleep. Mar-Vell was looking down at her pretzel'd up on the floor with a half smile. They had been waiting for sun. Waiting to find out if Mar-Vell had aimed them into a habitable sector of the galaxy. Mar-Vell looked tired. Carol was still devastated over Gret's death. They hadn't spoken of it yet. Deep down Carol knew Mar-Vell hadn't forced Gret's hand nor lied to her. Carol too had risked her life for Mar-Vell back when she was a breakable Terran and Mar-Vell was the brilliant, distant Dr. Wendy Lawson. She knew what it was like when Mar-Vell asked you to put your life in her hands, but for now, she had to be mad.

 

"Gret did it?" Carol asked, her voice full of awe.

 

"No one could have done it better." Mar-Vell looked sad. Carol had to remind herself that she had known Gret one day, Mar-Vell had known her for years.

 

"Where's Talos?" Carol asked unfolding herself, rubbing her bandaged arm. She glanced at Yon beneath the sheet. She could leave him for a moment now the sun was up. "Has he seen it yet?"

 

"He is trying to call Soren."

 

"Trying? Are we out of range?"

 

"We hope it's just that."

 

Talos was bent over the console of the scout ship. He was repeating the same keys over and over again. Carol stood behind him watching his frustration grow. She wanted to help him. She opened her mouth to say something, but she was interrupted by a whistling sound from her comm. She looked at it and blinked. She couldn't be reading it right.

 

"Talos" he ignored her. "Talos."

 

"What?" He turned to her clearly on edge.

 

Carol held up her blinking wrist.

 

"It's my ship."

* * *

 

Carol had left Talos, Mar-Vell and Greet on the surface of Onigaia. Mar-Vell had assured her they would be fine. All signs pointed to Onigaia being stable and habitable. She had scans running constantly to check for any unexpected shifting or weather patterns. Carol had agreed only when she saw the strained look on Talos' face. Her ship had sent her only coordinates within Helgentar over twenty hours from where they had left the Skrull's ship.

 

"I will find them and bring them here," Carol had promised him, pulling Talos into a tight hug. They hadn't done the impossible to give up now.

 

As she strapped in and prepared for takeoff she heard a rustle behind her. She turned to see Yon slumped in the doorway his chest bandaged. An intravenous port was still stuck in the web of veins at his elbow.

 

"Don't move around so much, you're dead," Carol said looking back to the console. "Go back to the cabin."

 

"I am not very good at being dead," his voice was low and thick as he hadn't used in several hours. "I have been in bed long enough."

 

"You have to strap in then, we are going to jump soon." As an afterthought, she added, "being dead just takes practice."

 

He stiffly climbed into the co pilot's chair, grimacing as the fastenings rubbed against his bandage. He looked at her as she confidently readied the craft to leave the atmosphere.

 

"You will have to teach me the way of it, Carol Danvers."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep an eye out for me ;-)


End file.
